


you give me something

by skitzofreak



Series: One Night Stand [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Awkward morning after, Colonialism, Competency, Coping, Crisis of Faith, F/M, First Date, First Meeting, First Time, Fluff, Found Family Feels, Humor, Jyn joins the Alliance early, Now Explicit, Oral, Poetry, Porn with Feelings, References To Terrorism, Spy Stuff, Swearing, The Empire is Not Nice, Violence, and also cuddling, background F/F relationship, background M/M relationship, because these things all go together, but a non-explicit version of that chapter is posted seperately, but i think it turned into "I bet jedha city was super pretty once", doing evil in the name of the cause, minor political opinions, multiple supporting OCs, some discussion of suicide, the occupation of NiJedha, the theme was "the evolution of trust", touch starved, tragic backstories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2018-12-22 04:42:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 112,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11959959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: She ought to slap him away and tell him to kriff off. She ought to dig the point of her knife into that wide palm, just to teach him. She ought to go find some dark hole and wait until tomorrow, when her recruits would arrive.Jyn reached up and laid her palm across his. “Just for today,” she echoed, and her voice sounded strange in her own ears. Too high, too breathy, too…hopeful.In a slightly different universe, Jyn gets the chance to see the Holy City before the Empire strips it bare. As fate (or the Force) would have it, she won't see it alone.





	1. Stranger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ivaylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo/gifts).



> A gift for [Ivaylo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo/pseuds/Ivaylo), because you somehow got me invested in bird-jokes for half the day and then said some lovely and encouraging things on my tumblr about my story ideas. This was meant to be a funny one shot about an awkward morning after - 2000 words, tops - but instead it became a 15k word (and climbing) multi-chaptered monstrosity about Jedha City, Jyn's issues, and Cassian's complete lack of chill. Also, there are a ridiculous number of notes at the end of every chapter, because I am incapable of writing even a simple story without overthinking literally everything.
> 
> Only two things you need to know for this AU: Jyn ended up with the Alliance after Saw ditched her, and this story takes place _before_ the Empire invaded Jedha for kyber.
> 
> The title is from James Morrison's [You Give Me Something](https://play.google.com/music/preview/T5lhtjzje6d2jhoeckoimn5jneq?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-songlyrics).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: [thereigning-lorelai](http://thereigning-lorelai.tumblr.com/) made a [lovely manip/moodboard](http://thereigning-lorelai.tumblr.com/post/166405455260/jyn-smirked-at-him-and-rolled-her-eyes-slightly-to) for this story! I'm so flattered and thrilled! (You should absolutely check out their blog, they have a ton of gorgeous edits, many of them rebelcaptain).

Someone was watching her.

Jyn sipped her boba tea and swept her gaze around the small tea shop. Various sentients strolled in an out of the airy little shop, tapping on jars of tea leaves and chattering in the many languages of pilgrims. Jyn shifted a little further back into the corner she had claimed, and eyed the few other beings who were also stationary. A handful of Toribota clansmen huddled in the far corner from her, chirping to one another in their sing-song tongue. A towering Lorrdian swathed entirely in the bright red robes of the Brotherhood of the Beautific Countenance idly swung a staff-mounted incense-burner around his tall body, adding the heavy smell of cinnamon to the shop’s already fragrant aroma. None of them seemed to be looking at her, but then, all of them had their faces well hidden by robes or helmets. Jyn shifted again to turn slightly towards the front of the shop, towards the busy street, but nothing seemed suspicious out there, either. Still, the feeling of unseen eyes tugged at the back of her neck, and she scowled slightly into her tea. Jedha’s weak mid-morning sun created far too many shadows in these bustling streets, and the constant press of crowds made her tense, maybe even paranoid.

On the other hand, she hadn’t survived this long by ignoring her instincts. Jyn took a last gulp from her cup, chewing idly on the flavorful little tapioca balls in the bottom as she tossed her cup into the bin by the counter. Carefully, keeping her shoulders as relaxed as possible and her face neutral, she tugged her faded grey scarf up over her head and strolled out into the street. She kept to the sides as much as possible, watching the shadows, trying futilely to listen for footsteps behind her through the noise of the crowds.

She walked for several blocks, making random turns and darting between gaps in the crowd from time to time, as if she was simply in a hurry rather than trying to shake a follower. She turned a particularly sharp corner, and abruptly stopped short.

Before her, the huge Temple of Kyber towered up out of the rough red walls of the Holy City, and Jyn momentarily forgot about her possible pursuer. It wasn’t so much the size of the building – although it was significantly larger than any other structure in the entire city – but the shimmering crystals that were carved into the otherwise featureless off-white stone. Glittering crystals were worked into the stone in patterns of vines, strange animals, gorgeous flowers, and odd symbols that she could not read. An arch of the clear stone swelled over the main entrance, like a rolling tidal wave that had crystallized at the exact moment it touched the shore. And even though the winter sun was weak, the pale light caught in every faceted surface, fracturing into a fluttering, shimmering spray of rainbows that danced around the Temple. The colors fluttered and faded like mist, making the heavy straight lines of the stonework look fragile as spun sugar and as fantastic as a children’s tale of ancient Jedi miracles.

Jyn had long ago turned her back on her mother’s faith, but just for a moment, she understood why people crossed the galaxy for even the merest glimpse of this iridescent marvel. Jyn reached up to press her fingers against the small, hidden lump of stone beneath her shirt and thought, _oh Mama, how you would have loved this_.

“Beautiful,” an accented voice murmured from her side, and Jyn crashed back into reality with a painful thud.

He was Human, roughly her age, tall, dark haired, with a slightly unkempt beard and a heavy parka concealing his lean upper body. Jyn twisted to face him directly, one hand on her concealed blaster and the other fist raised to block a possible blow. He watched her snap into combat stance, his own hands tucked into his parka and head tilted slightly to the side. His eyes, Jyn decided, were entirely too sharp for her comfort, and he didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised to see the outline of her blaster through her thin jacket.

Jyn tried to step a little further back, out of his arm’s reach, but he lifted an eyebrow and nodded behind her. She almost turned and bolted right there, except a large group of blue-skinned Britarro stumbled up from the direction he’d indicated, roaring drunkenly at each other. She had to step forwards, towards the stranger again, or risk getting caught up in their violent cultural debate. Scowling, she decided to try a different approach, and got right into his personal space, tilting her chin to stare at him and flicking her emergency pitch-coated switchblade out and into her left hand with a very audible _click_.

The stranger glanced down at the noise, and his lips thinned slightly but his eyes stayed impassive. Jyn rested the sharp point of the blade very gently against his chest in warning, the action hidden from the general crowd by both of their bodies, and stared without blinking for several seconds – a move that often unnerved anyone who tried to fuck with her. The stranger simply watched, unmoved.

“You followed me,” she growled.

He nodded, but made no other move to answer or retaliate.

Jyn pressed the knife point harder against his chest, just enough to dent in the thick parka and let him feel exactly how easily she could jam it between his ribs. His breathing stayed shallow and calm, but, weirdly, his lips quirked into a brief smile. “I was curious,” he said at last.

Jyn narrowed her eyes, but she could be patient too, and _she_ had the knife.

“You don’t look like a pilgrim,” he explained softly. “But your accent says Core world. Coruscant, maybe. And I could see at least…” his eyes raked down her, even from this difficult angle (and Jyn wanted to slap herself for the sudden warmth that rushed through her veins). “… _six_ weapons,” the stranger finished. “I was just curious what a heavily-armed woman who moves like a fighter and watches the shadows might be doing in the Holy City.”

“You were in the tea shop,” Jyn tried to sound certain, like she’d marked him there, but the little smile tugging at his lips told her that he knew she hadn’t.  He glanced up suddenly, tracking something behind her, and Jyn heard the disturbingly electronic voice of a Decraniated server in the nearby shop calling out at them, inviting them in the halting tones of a Half-Head to come and view her master’s wares. Jyn tensed, torn between turning to face the oncoming servant and keeping her eyes on the stranger.

Before she could decide what to do, the stranger lifted his arm slowly and rested it across her shoulders in a casual embrace, and answered the Decraniated in one of the local languages – _Kaantah’nese_ , she thought, the language of the Priests and Guardians of the Whills, but she couldn’t be sure. Whatever he said, the servant’s unnaturally erratic tread stopped, although she did not turn away and chattered something in the same language back at them. The stranger gave the servant an easy, polite, entirely fake smile, and gently tugged on Jyn’s shoulders, pulling her away. He spoke again to the Decraniated, waving with his spare hand, and Jyn had to pull her blade a little away from his chest to stop from accidentally spearing him as they shifted back towards the far edge of the street.

“Here,” he murmured to her, dropping his arm from her shoulder but wrapping his hand around hers (around the hilt of the knife, she noted sourly) and tugging lightly to guide her into the small alley between two large shops. The second they were around the corner and out of sight of the Half-head, Jyn twisted her wrist sharply, forcing him to release the blade or risk losing a finger. He immediately held his hands up, palms out, and dropped the fake smile.

Jyn kept the knife between them, and they were still close enough that she could easily press it against his chest – or throat – again. She kept it a few centimeters away, and eyed him warily. “You don’t look like a pilgrim either,” she said at last. “And that accent is, what, Mid-Rim?”

“Fest,” he murmured with a slight nod, and Jyn did her best to look like she knew where that was.

“So then,” she continued, “what’s a heavily armed man who moves like a thief and follows strange women around doing in the Holy City?”

At that, his lips twitched again in that small but genuine smile, and he slowly let his hands drop. “How do you know I am armed?”

“Blaster holstered under your left arm,” she told him flatly. “Vibroblade in your right sleeve, and if I had to guess, another in your boot.” She pointed the tip of her black blade at his waist and raised an eyebrow of her own. “And a non-standard sniper scope on your belt. Probably your own modification.”

His dark eyes widened just a fraction before he smoothed his expression into distant amusement, but Jyn was close enough and careful enough to catch the surprise before he could hide it entirely. She smirked at him, and let the tip of her blade drop a little further.

“Well, that sounds like a nice haul, doesn’t it, Dewan,” a new voice grated from their left, and Jyn felt the stranger spin to face it as she did. Five bulky Klatooinians lurched out of the shadows of the alley from where they had been clustered around a small, greenish fire. The biggest of them, a sickly orange male with a jutting lower jaw and only half his teeth still clinging to his greyish gums, smiled at Jyn and pointed at her chest. “I get the fem,” he announced. “You lot can have the big one. I hear he’s got plenty of swag tucked on him.”

“You do not want to start this,” the stranger said in a harsh tone, and Jyn noted with interest that he could switch to cold and intimidating as easily as he could polite and friendly. The nearest Klatooinian actually stepped backwards a little, one green-grey hand raising a poorly-constructed blaster and pointed it nervously at the stranger’s chest. Big Orange grunted and slapped the coward across the back of his fleshy head before turning back to the Humans.

“The big one would probably fetch something from the Imperials, I’m thinking,” he snarled, eyeing the stranger like he was a nerf rancher at a livestock show. “We can just say we caught him talking crap about the Emperor. They’ll pay a lot for a rebel _shtik drek_.”

When they had turned to face their common threat, Jyn and the stranger had wound up almost pressed shoulder to shoulder, so she felt rather than saw the slight flinch that went through him when the Klatooinian said _Imperials_. Then he went so still that she almost wanted to turn and check if he was still breathing.

“He might be an Imp himself, Inek,” the twitchy pink one muttered. “Imps are always Humans.”

“No, too furry,” Orange shook his head, beady eyes shifting to Jyn. “Imps like their boys shaved. And they don’t take the fems, so she’ll be good fun for me when I - ”

Jyn never learned whatever the bulky orange man considered “good fun,” because before he could finish speaking, a bolt of green light flashed through his left eye and he dropped like a stone to the dirty alley floor. Jyn had only half a second to register the blaster that had appeared like magic in the stranger’s hand, and half a second more to appreciate the accuracy of a wild shot from the hip, but then she was across the distance between herself and the other four Klatooinians and her attention was elsewhere.

Vaguely she thought she heard the stranger shout something to her, but her blood was up and her truncheons were out, and she listened only to sweet song of steel whistling through the air.

She swung upwards with her left truncheon, catching the green one in the chin with a _crack_ and sending him arching backwards, already unconscious long before he hit the ground. The pink one squeaked and raised his own blaster, but Jyn sidestepped the quavering barrel and backhanded him with her second truncheon, and let the spin pull her around once more to strike the fourth red-skinned Klatooinian with both truncheons full across the throat and chest. Efficiently, she finished the spin by crouching low on her heels and hammered a punishing blow into the thigh of the fifth enemy. He screeched and dropped to his knees in front of her, and Jyn launched herself upwards towards his broad blue face, throwing her elbow up in front of her face and slamming it into his ridged nose. She felt the bone and cartilage crunch under the blow, and though the Klatooinian was at least twice her mass and twenty centimeters taller besides, he went down before her onslaught like a house of cards, collapsing in a messy pile at her feet.

Jyn stepped back out of his long reach, just in case, and surveyed the alley way. The orange and the red Klatooinian were dead, one shot cleanly through the eye and the other with a crushed throat and caved-in chest. The pink one twitched on the ground next to his solidly unconscious green friend, and the blue one was curled in a fetal position, clutching his face and whimpering into his hands, eyes screwed shut in pain.

Jyn turned sharply back to the stranger, who was standing completely still, blaster pointed at the blue Klatooinian (smart, Jyn noted with approval, since he was the only one still awake and capable of retaliation). The blaster was steady in his hands, but his dark eyes were fixed on Jyn.

“Impressive,” he said quietly, and his voice was no longer cold at all.

“Nice shot,” Jyn jerked her head at the blaster, because that kind of skill deserved at least a little acknowledgement.

“I was worried I might hit you if I tried again,” he said slowly, and then with a brief glance at the blue Klatooinian, he dropped the blaster and tucked it back under his jacket, exactly where Jyn had thought it would be.

“I had it,” she told him a touch sharply, but the look he gave her was one of respect, not condescension, so she shrugged and added gruffly, “but thanks anyway.”

He made a small, amused humming noise and folded his arms. “Thoughts on what to do with them?”

She eyed the lot for a moment, then shook her head. “Don’t care. They don’t have anything worth taking and they aren’t a threat anymore.”

“ _Your liver to fall out of your nasal cavity in small rotting pieces_ ,” the remaining Klatooinian spat in Huttese, a little indistinctly through his hands.

“ _Your tongue to sprout with infected pustules_.” Jyn’s own Huttese was a little rusty, but she leaned forward aggressively and the blue idiot shut his eyes again and threw his arms over his head, so she figured she made her point.

Behind her, the stranger sidled a little further away from the fallen beings, and leaned against the wall near the street entrance. He looked as calm and collected as if they had just had a pleasant conversation with friends rather than been held at blaster-point and threatened with slavery and death.

Jyn holstered her truncheons and marched up to him, her blood still hot from the fight and her earlier hesitation burned away. She came to a halt in front of him and braced her feet, arms folded and face challenging. “So?” she demanded. He raised an eyebrow, and she pointed to his concealed blaster, then to his belt, then his boot.

He hesitated, and then shrugged a little. “I’m here to meet someone. But I came in early, so I thought I would see the famous Holy City a little, before I must leave.”

Jyn blinked at him, because that story sounded eerily familiar. Without thinking, she said, “me too,” and then wanted to smack herself all over again. _Not that he needed to know_ , but Jyn was here to meet several someones, because the Alliance had sent her here to pick up a whole group of incoming soldiers all hoping to join the rebellion. Twelve new recruits from various corners of the galaxy, and some poor shmuck in command had somehow coordinated to get them all to Jedha, where Imperial presence was minimal and offworlders were largely unremarkable. Jyn’s job – Sergeant Jyn Erso’s job - was to pick up the lot of them and transfer them to the command of some officer that the Alliance was sending to vet them.

Of course, she wasn’t supposed to be here for another day at least, but she was in a bit of a disgrace right now, after finding herself in her…fourth? No, fifth Imperial prison a few weeks ago. Sure, she’d broken right back out again, but General Syndulla had shaken her head and that big red-headed arsehole whose name she could never remember had glared at her, and so instead of heading out to scope a new target for the Pathfinders, she had been picked for babysitting duty. Since she saw no need to bum around base dodging irate commanders, she’d chosen to cut out early and get in position ahead of time. _Scope the situation_ , she’d told herself.

And now some total random stranger had latched on to her, and her cover might be blown before she ever got near her pickups.

_Shit._

“So your…friend is not yet here?” The stranger tapped his fingers idly on his arm, but the movement seemed more deliberate than idle, as if he was making a point of showing her where his hands were. Considering that he’d just seen her take out four armed beings much larger than herself, that was probably a wise self-preservation instinct.

“Soon enough,” she snapped, irritated at herself for giving away too much. He hummed a little, and though she knew, she _knew_ he made the sound as reassuring as possible, it was so _obvious_ that he was trying to soothe her, she found her hackles settling anyway.  “So now you know,” she ground out, struggling to sound unaffected. “Curiosity satisfied?”

“Not really,” he said lightly, and Jyn watched his mouth twist again, downward this time, as if mildly displeased. “Honestly, I’m not sure why,” he admitted, catching her looking.

And staring at him, watching the few bits of light that slanted down between the buildings catch in his eyes, Jyn understood what he meant. “Well,” she managed in a voice that sounded only a little strained. “At least you have good taste.”

“So it seems,” the stranger chuckled briefly, a low sound that made Jyn want to lean forward and touch him because something was seriously _wrong_ with her today. She realized that her own mouth was curving slightly upward in response, and obstinately flattened it out again.

Suddenly, he pushed himself off the wall and held out one hand, just slightly, as if beckoning to her. Jyn startled and her hand flew back to her knife, but he made no further move towards her. “If we’re both here to see the city,” he said, his narrow features more open than she’d seen them yet, “then let’s do that.”

Jyn stared at him, wondering if he had lost his mind. “What?”

“See it,” he replied a touch impatiently, like it was the most obvious thing in the world and he didn’t have time for her hedging. “Together.”

“Are you…” she looked from his hand to his face, and her knife wavered slightly. “We’re strangers,” she said at last, feeling wrong-footed and a little lost.

He nodded and gave her a half-smile that was nothing like the fake tourist grin of before. “A bargain then,” he offered, and lifted his outstretched hand slightly to hold it palm up, like she’d seen the smugglers on Onderon do as a child in Saw’s cadre. She supposed his “someone” was a smuggling contact, then, either buying his goods or selling him something from Jehda. For his sake, she hoped he wasn’t running stolen kyber. She’d heard that the Temple Guardians were nasty enemies to have. “No questions, no real names, no tricks,” he said in a brisk, business-like tone. And then his voice dropped into something warmer, gentler, and Jyn forced herself not to flinch as he added, “Just for today, we can be friends.”

He waited patiently, hand still outstretched, and oddly, Jyn found herself trying to remember the last time anyone had held her hand. It had to have been…shite, she really couldn’t remember. Her recruiter, maybe, back when she was sixteen and starving to death, and an Alliance agent had found her nearly dead in a gutter and offered her a chance to eat, sleep, and fight again. Jyn had joined the Alliance, partly for survival and partly because, well, what the hells else was she supposed to do? All she knew was war, ever since she was eight and her mother had died in the mud. But after Saw, Jyn had no illusions about her place in the organization, in any organization, so she stayed quiet and solitary and did whatever she was asked to do and that was that.

She’d had some sparring partners, some brief one-night stands in the barracks…but that was it.

He was still holding his hand out. His fingers were long and only slightly calloused, no brawling scars across his knuckles, no knife marks or burns.

She ought to slap him away and tell him to kriff off. She ought to dig the point of her knife into that wide palm, just to teach him. She ought to go find some dark hole and wait until tomorrow, when her recruits would arrive.

Jyn reached up and laid her palm across his. “Just for today,” she echoed, and her voice sounded strange in her own ears. Too high, too breathy, too…hopeful.

“Come on then,” her temporary friend said quietly.

“Where are we going?” Jyn pulled her hand away and shoved it in her pocket, working to conceal her absurd little flash of disappointment at the lost contact.

“To see,” he replied simply, and turned to the opening of the alley.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't had [boba tea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea), you're missing out. While I love all the funky flavors too, I strongly recommend "thai boba," which is mostly a blend of black chai, sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla, and sweet condensed milk. It's _glorious_ (it's also the flavor I imagine Jyn was drinking, in the beginning of the story, because it's like coffee without all the terrible side effects or addiction).
> 
> We're told that the Imperials looted the Temple of Kyber for it's crystals, and I just sort of wondered...where were all those crystals being kept? The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of Kyber being used as decoration, that the big brownish/white stone box we see in the movies was once covered in ornate, glittering crystal designs. I imagine that it probably depicted things like Jedi lightsabers and historical figures from thousands of years gone by, along with more traditional symbolisms and artistic renderings of faith. Why else would people come from all over the galaxy, from multiple different religions, to worship in _one_ temple? 
> 
> The [Decraniated](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Decraniated) are a particularly creepy part of Jedhan culture and history. (I made up the unkind appellation "Half-head." I figure they wouldn't be terribly popular in society, either organic or droid, given their...unusual natures and uncertain status as living beings or animated corpses.)
> 
> Kaantah’nese = space!Cantonese, one of the languages spoken by Donnie Yen and common in Hong Kong (his home). I figured since Jedha has many languages, this could be the one used mostly by Priests and Guardians of the Whills. Cassian speaks just enough of it to get around, but couldn't hold a prolonged conversation in it.
> 
> [Klatooinians](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Klatooinian) are often hired as hitmen and thugs for people like the Hutts. The ones we meet here are between employers, and not really very good at sizing up opponents. Nothing says they are ever any color except for greenish-grey, but I think that's boring and made them much more diverse (also, good way to tell them apart when describing the fight scene). 
> 
> A "shtik drek" is a Yiddish insult that means "shit head." I gave it to the Jedhan Klatooinians because I headcanon that one of the major Jedhan languages (aside from space!Cantonese) is space!Yiddish, and these guys are locals. Also, the two "huttese" insults that Jyn and the would-be thief exchange are actually Yiddish insults as well, although I claimed them for Huttese. They were too beautiful not to use.


	2. Companion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn glanced up at him through her eyelashes and, not for the first time found herself wondering, _who the many hells are you?_

At midday, the crowds of Jedha doubled. Jyn frowned as a pale Twi’lek with withered lekku nearly shoved roughly between her and the stranger, stopping only when the stranger moved close enough to press against her shoulder with a pointed look at the intruder (backed up by Jyn’s even more pointed snarl). The Twi’lek sneered at them both but veered to the side. Jyn watched him go, something in his demeanor setting off vague alarm bells in her head. But her companion touched her arm and as she followed his silent direction to the other side of the street, the Twi’lek was lost in the crowd. Mentally, she ticked off his last known location on the internal map she was building of the city as they moved. In the event of attack or a need to escape, she now knew at least four good routes to the space port and...well, a lot of winding paths through the narrow streets. Perhaps she wasn't taking the most efficient routes right now. Still, Jyn carefully marked the metal fire-escapes bolted to the worn stone above them and added the row of smoke-dens on this street to her map.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her companion tilting his head back to look at the fire-escapes too. As she watched, his gaze shifted down to a group of children playing in the entrance to an alley, and then to the high-set tinted windows of the building opposite their game. _Sniper scope_ , she remembered. She nudged him slightly to draw his attention back down to street level and guide him around a scuttling Utai. “Three of the major religions just finished their morning services,” he bent down to tell her, and although he didn’t raise his voice, she had no trouble picking his words out of the cacophony of the street. “That’s probably where all the extra bodies are coming from.”

Jyn nodded, scowling as a group of robed Humans carrying what looked like large, wicked spears came striding out of a smoke-den in a small cloud of purple haze. The spearmen swerved towards them to avoid a begging trio on the street corner, chattering loudly and nearly knocking her companion into her. She steadied him with a hand to the elbow, and he flashed her another small smile, rolling his eyes slightly at the oblivious men. “This is mad,” she told him, then noticed abruptly that she was still clutching at his elbow. She jerked away like it burned her, refusing to look at his face, and scanned the street markers. “There,” she pointed to the east. “Less people.”

“The Paths of Judgment,” he mused, apparently able to read the symbols picked out in blue and gold mosaic tiles on the red stone wall. His voice took on a hint of tease. “Sounds like a nice place to get away from the crowd.”

“Looks like a nice place we can breathe,” Jyn grumbled, glaring at a scarred Gran in a dusty environ-suit that shoved past her without slowing.

He placed a warm palm against the small of her back, and although Jyn let him herd her lightly towards the tiled archway, she refused to lean back into his touch. A woman had to have some dignity, for fuck’s sake.

They passed under the ornate entrance and the crowds thinned enough that they could walk at a more natural pace, without constantly stopping or shuffling through blockages. Absently, Jyn noted that despite his distinctly longer legs, they moved as easily together as if they had been doing it for years. They’d even arranged themselves so that their respective blasters were on the opposite sides from where the other walked. When she paused, he paused with her; when he stepped out to move quickly through a gap, she instinctively sped up too. They moved, she realized with a little start, like a combat unit moving through potentially hostile territory, something that often took months of training to achieve. She’d never really been able to manage it with anyone – no Partisan had ever been willing to brave Saw's glower to partner with his skinny protégé, and after she had...moved on, well. Too impatient, the Alliance evaluators told her. Too suspicious. Too unwilling to adjust to someone else’s rhythm.

And yet, here she was, moving in perfect synch with a man whose name she didn’t even know.

Jyn glanced up at him through her eyelashes and, not for the first time found herself wondering, _who the many hells are you_?

“That is very…bright,” he said, raising his eyebrows at something ahead of them and stopping abruptly. Jyn wrenched her attention from the study of his profile to look forward, and only years of self-control stopped her from gaping like a fool.

The predominate color was red: scarlet columns rose in clean lines on either side of the long wide corridor, thin crimson support beams wove in intricate patterns across the arched ceiling, and ruby spiraling patterns accented the colorful walls. It looked like veins, Jyn thought, a network of bright blood vessels pulsing throughout the structure. The tops of the columns were painted in a riot of colors, blue birds and green leaves, orange and pink flowers bursting messily on top of rigid patterns of white and yellow diamond shapes. The ceiling, in between the vivid red lines, was covered in exhaustingly detailed images of sentient beings of all kinds, crowded in with non-sentient animals and even, she thought, the occasional droid. And from each figure, a bright red line twisted like a thread around their bodies, originating from their heads or hearts or…whatever _that_ particular body part was…and then twining down towards the thickest support beam in the center of the hallway ceiling. The red threads wove in and out of each other, disappearing into the thinner support beams as if they were tiny blood vessels joining with larger ones. “They’re all tied together,” Jyn said, trying to follow the path of one thread and losing it almost immediately.

“ _Todo está conectado_ ,” her companion muttered, and Jyn shot him a sharp glance. “Something I heard a priest say, I think,” he explained. “Life reaches for life.” He frowned slightly, looking back up at the intricate ceiling. “Or I think that was what he meant. I admit, I do not…” he paused, shrugged. “I am not a believer,” he said softly, like a confession.

Jyn shook her head. “Me neither.” Normally, this was not something that evoked any shame - or it wouldn't have been, if she'd ever bothered to share it with anyone - but for some reason, in this place she almost flinched as she said it. “But I suppose…” she followed his gaze up, nodding at the ceiling, and touched her fingertips lightly to the crystal hidden in her scarf. “I understand what he meant.”

He sighed quietly, and Jyn almost asked him why, but retained at least enough sanity to bite it back in time. “I am not entirely sure what any of this has to do with judgment," he said, still looking up at the tapestry of connected beings above them.

Jyn raised a hand and pointed to the walls. “I’m guessing, _that_.”

Her companion stepped closer to follow the path of her gesture, his shoulder pressed against hers again but without the excuse of the crowd to make it necessary. It was probably just the heavy parka he wore, significantly more suited to the chill of Jedha’s winter than her own cheap jacket, but Jyn could feel the warmth from his body all along her shoulder and even a little radiating towards her side. Jyn lowered her arm as casually as she could, allowing it to brush against his. If she were two centimeters closer, she’d be tucked against his side. A ridiculous notion, and a dangerous one, but though she cursed herself for a soft-headed idiot, she did not step away.

If he registered how close they stood, he didn’t show it, instead squinting into the riot of color where she had pointed.  Between each column, set back into the brightly patterned walls, was an ornate statue of some kind of beast. They all had the body of an unfamiliar quadrupedal creature, large and heavily muscled, but every statue boasted a different head. Some snarled with huge, red-painted teeth, some smiled benignly from behind blue eyes, some had almost too-beautiful versions of humanoid faces – each of one them, however, had a kyber crystal set into the middle of it's forehead, ground down to a smooth round lens shape and angled slightly towards the ceiling. Sunlight from the round skylights and from the tall, narrow windows in the walls caught in each crystal, casting a much smaller version of the grand Temple’s colorful mist around the statues.

But the strangest aspect of the statues wasn’t the warped faces or the shimmering crystals – it was the way every one of them appeared to follow Jyn with their eyes as she and her companion moved slowly through the corridor. “Now the name makes sense,” he muttered, watching the still creatures from the corners of his eyes. Some of the statues were carved into odd positions; one stretched an animal-like limb that ended in a human hand out towards them, an accusatory finger jabbing at their faces. Another had her paws against her face as if weeping, except she peered with red-painted eyes through her splayed claws. A third had some kind of cat head but grinned at them with large human teeth and knowing yellow eyes.

Too many corners, Jyn thought, eyeing all the dark places behind pillars and statues where an attacker could easily hide. "Agreed," he murmured, and she realized that she'd voiced her thought out loud. "On the positive side, no high ground or clear sight lines," he added, flicking a finger up towards the ceiling.

"So at least the ambush would be at ground level," she said wryly, grimacing at a delicate green face that looked like a beautiful smiling Twi'lek fem until you saw that she had fanged snakes in place of lekku. 

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "And within striking range."

“I almost wish there was something to hit now. This is worse than when _you_ were watching me,” Jyn joked weakly, trying not to feel affected by the hundreds of eerie eyes burning into her. Or not actually burning into her, of course, because it was just paint and stone, nothing real, nothing _alive_. All the same, they seemed to stab into her skin like a thousand hot little needles, and she drifted closer to her companion, brushing against his arm and taking some pathetic comfort from his solid presence. At least he blocked the eyes on the other side of the corridor from her.

“You mean in the tea shop?” he asked, and then he shuddered slightly against her shoulder as they passed a sad-looking almost-Human face, mouth opened wide in a despairing wail, clutching at its front leg as if it were broken. The statue seemed to arch in anguish, as if something were stabbing into it's back. Her companion stared at it with an odd look on his face, shuttered and tense.

“That’s how I knew you were there, earlier,” she admitted despite herself, because the (not real, _not real_ ) eyes were unnerving her too. “I felt someone watching me.”

He turned to look at her, and the weight of his gaze temporarily smothered the sensation of a thousand scorching eyes.  She cringed a little, because now that she’d said it out loud she could hear how insane that sounded, how ridiculous. But all he said was, “so that’s how you knew?”

Jyn shrugged evasively, and then strode purposefully onward, aiming for the distant archway leading out to what looked like a slightly less crowded part of the City.

He kept pace easily, and they moved silently down the rest of the corridor, side by side.  The statues watched them go.

 

\--

 

He bought a basket of something called _baozi_ , a dozen bulb-like pastries stuffed with meat. He kept his voice a touch too casual on the word “meat,” and when she gave him a pointed look he ducked his head and gave her the half-smile again, this time a touch rueful. “I don’t actually know,” he admitted. “And I’m not sure I want to. If you don’t want - ”

Jyn reached out and deftly plucked a dumpling from the basket, biting into it with relish. She’d been hungry far too many times to flinch at mystery meat. “Long as it’s dead,” she told him around the mouthful, and he snorted and picked out one for himself. They were good, although a the cook had used a little too much rock salt. Jyn scanned the little market where they had found themselves, a smaller, less painfully busy version of the district where she had had her morning tea, the impossibly full streets where he had somehow tailed her despite her best effort. The square was ringed around the edges with cloth-covered stalls, all offering various fried or boiled foods under the shelter of the red-stoned buildings. The smell of sizzling meat and spices mingled with the indistinct aroma of dozens of different species packed into an area too small for all of them. It was still relatively early in the evening, but the sun was already setting below the skyline of the city, and the vendors of the market were setting out brightly colored paper lanterns amidst the more common electronic street lamps and the occasional flashing neon holo-sign. It gave the market square a colorful glow that dimly echoed the kyber mists around the Temple.

She found what she was looking for a few stalls down, and she slid off the low wall where they had perched to eat the _baozi_. “These are too salty,” she told her companion, and then darted into the crowd without warning. She thought she heard him say something in a choked voice, felt the breeze of what might have been his fingers just missing her shoulder, but she had to duck around a knot of rushing pilgrims and couldn’t turn back to check. The vendor she was aiming for was relatively busy, but Jyn managed to haggle two large cups of steaming red rooibos tea for half the price that Jyn heard the vendor wheedle out of the poor fool behind her as she left. Jyn dropped her chin and smirked into her scarf, but then her attention was devoted to dodging through the crowd with two hot drinks in her hands, and she didn’t really look up until she was almost back to the wall.

“You came back,” he said almost too low for her to hear, and something in his voice snapped Jyn’s head up to stare at him. He sat exactly where she left him, the remaining dumplings cooling on the wall beside him, completely untouched since she left.

“'Course,” she replied, a little dumbfounded by the intense way he watched her. “Here,” to break the suddenly heavy moment, she thrust one of the steaming cups out to him. He took it, and his fingers closed over hers for a moment. Jyn had to remind herself to let go and move away, back to her spot on the crumbling wall. “Since you bought the food,” she clarified, just so he wouldn’t think she was soft.

He murmured his thanks and took a sip, but though he seemed focused on the rippling surface of the tea, Jyn had the strangest feeling that he was still watching her. Jyn picked up another dumpling, half scanning their surroundings for threats and half studying him right back as she ate. The shadows were deeper now, the colored lamps casting a multi-colored glow across his face. They picked his profile out in scarlet, colored his parka a shifting mix of blue and green, and flashed orange and gold in his hair. He looked, a small, strange part of her thought, like one of the creatures from the Paths of Judgment. Except of course, his gaze didn’t make her skin crawl.

On the contrary, when he glanced up and caught her staring, his eyes seemed to set a fire smoldering across her cheeks that slipped down her neck and spread slowly across her shoulders, her chest, her belly. It provoked a strange restlessness that prowled through her, an urge to reach out and scrape her fingertips through his hair, to huddle against his side. She wanted to touch him, and that was by far the most dangerous impulse out of a series of dangerous impulses she’d been feeling all damn day.

“Your friend,” he said suddenly, “they are not coming tonight?”

Jyn blinked, thrown by the question, and she felt her hackles raise a little at his probe, however mild. “Why?”

“I was just,” he looked away from her, raked his gaze around the market square as if checking for listeners, then shoved a hand through his hair distractedly and turned back to her. “I only wondered if you had some more time.”

Jyn took a sip of her tea to stall, then nodded. “Not meeting anyone until tomorrow,” she said cautiously. “But I’ll probably need a pretty early start,” she immediately hedged, just in case she needed an excuse to bail out later.

“Long way to go?” Before she could snap an answer, he held up one hand to forestall her, “No, sorry, never mind. No questions, right?”

“Right,” she settled again, willing her body to relax. The silence between them stretched out, uncomfortable and awkward for the first time since he’d walked up and nearly given her a heart attack this morning (this morning? karking hells, it felt like a lifetime ago already). Jyn found herself hating it, hating the tension in his shoulders and the careful way he did not look at her, hating the uncertainty prickling at the back of her neck. “I just don’t want to be late,” she blurted out, hunting for some way back to the inexplicable but undeniable comfort they had shared for the majority of the day. “Supposed to be meeting…” she caught herself before she could say ‘ _a superior officer_.’ “…a new boss,” she compromised, and he nodded thoughtfully, the rigidity fading from his spine.

“And you want to make a good first impression,” he said understandingly.

“That’s it,” Jyn grinned a little. “Don’t want to look a tit on my first day.”

“But you do have some time yet, right?” His voice was light, his face relaxed and casual, but Jyn heard the undercurrent of hope and she swallowed a large gulp of her cooling tea, telling herself not to read too much into it.

“Yeah. Some.”

“Then there’s one more thing I wanted to see while I was here,” her strange companion hopped off the wall and tossed the now-empty basket back towards the vendor who had sold it to them. “Come with me?” He held out his hand again, and this time Jyn didn’t hesitate to reach out and grab it. And when he gave her a gentle tug, she slid off the wall and followed without pulling away. She felt giddy, a little light-headed, and warm despite the oncoming chill of night and her thin jacket. It was like the time she’d tried a watered down glitterstim-tea, all her senses on overdrive – every light was a touch brighter, every sound a little more crisp, and her skin registered every puff of air and scrape of cloth against it. His fingers curled around hers as they moved together through the crowd, weaving through the masses, keeping close to the walls, watching the shadows.

Jyn debated the odds that she was being lured into some kind of trap, and decided that if he really was going to turn on her, he’d had all bloody day to get on with it. And if he tried anything funny, well, she’d beat the living daylights out of him and walk away happy. ( _Miserable_ , some tiny, rebellious part of her corrected. She’d beat the living daylights out of him and walk away _miserable_.)

(Fuck, she was in too deep.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Paths of Judgment are listed on Wookiepedia as a place of note for the city, but then tells you nothing else about them. So I took some artistic liberties, and made them a cross between [Tibetan temples](https://www.google.com/search?q=tibetan+temple&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbhYaUwofWAhUE4YMKHbq4CagQ_AUICigB&biw=1920&bih=963#imgdii=XwrJN_hmGHp3IM:&imgrc=omJz5GUbZzzSoM:) and the [west façade of Notre Dame](https://frenchmoments.eu/west-facade-of-notre-dame-cathedral-paris/) (specifically, the Gallery of Kings. Talk about your judgmental statues).
> 
> If you have not tried [baozi](https://migrationology.com/dangerously-tasty-steamed-chinese-baozi-buns/), I hope you get the chance soon (if you’re the cooking type, there are lots of recipes online where you can pick your favorite filling and give it a whirl).
> 
> I am something of a tea fan, and [rooibos](https://www.teatulia.com/tea-varieties/what-is-rooibos.htm) is my personal favorite (even though, _technically_ it's an herb and not a tea leaf, but if you put a plant in hot water and call it tea, then logically the plant must be a tea leaf, so take that, _science_ ).


	3. Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then he glanced behind her and lifted his head. “We're here,” he said softly, and Jyn turned around to look inside the open doors of the Infinite.

 

“It’s officially called the Dome of Deliverance,” he told her, watching her stare at the huge, vaulted structure. “But most of the locals just call it the Infinite.”

Jyn tore her eyes away from the huge curved pillars of stone, ordering herself not to imagine those ancient supports crumbling down on her head. This place was so old that is was still made entirely of rock? Surely someone had shored it up with durasteel or some more modern support structure, maybe on the inside. “Why?” She asked mostly to distract herself as they walked towards one of the large, open double doors. The place had a set of the same doors every twenty meters or so around the whole curved perimeter, which Jyn took as comfort. At least there were plenty of exits.

Her companion shrugged, but she caught the hint of a smile on the corner of his lips. “Because it’s supposed to make you think of infinity, I hear.”

Jyn opened her mouth to ask what _that_ meant, but he tugged on her hand to pull her out of the path of nearly a dozen men in black and red robes, carrying glowing lamps and pacing in two parallel lines out of the doors ahead. Jyn had to drop his hand and lean back against him to avoid getting shoved by several other pilgrims who were also clearing the way, and the warm press of his chest to her back almost distracted her too much to notice when one of the robed men – monks, she realized a beat late – turned his head suddenly towards her. He was tall and dark haired like her companion, and there was something that sparked in her mind when she looked at him, something in her that wanted to call out to him, just as her companion had called out to her. But the resemblance ended there. Her companion was made of harsh, lean lines, and stalked through the shadows of the world like he was waiting for an knife in the back. By contrast, the monk had a clean sort of elegance, and he moved with the confident glide of a man who feared no living thing. The lamp in his left hand cast a soft gold tint over his robes and skin, and in his right hand he held what she thought was a carved walking stick. As he came closer, however, Jyn noted that the metallic cap worked into the wood was glowing slightly on it's own, a faint greenish light that rippled the air around it. If Jyn hadn't seen that exact effect twice already today, she wouldn't have understood, but after the Temple and the Paths she would recognize kyber crystal mist anywhere.  

The monk slowed until he fell a little out of the procession, and Jyn looked from his glowing staff to meet his eyes – then realized with a jolt that they were clouded and blue with scars. He was blind, and yet he looked directly into her face and smiled as if at an old friend, and Jyn knew that he had seen her all the same.

Then he turned and swept back into his place in line with the other monks, and the small procession was soon swallowed in the night.

“Who…” her companion trailed off, then said in a less dazed voice, “Want to go in?” Their shuffle to avoid the monks had brought them almost through the doors themselves.

Jyn felt his voice in her back, and immediately straightened, savagely biting down on the inside of her cheek to kill the blush, because honestly, she was probably coming down with something. Exasperated with herself and a little unnerved by the encounter with the blind monk, Jyn strode resolutely forward through the doors and into what looked like a short tunnel, not checking back to make sure he followed (he did, half a step behind her and without missing a beat).

He settled back into pace at her side like it was the thousandth time he'd done it, instead of the second (or third or...not the thousandth, anyway). Jyn swallowed, watching him from the corner of her eye and wondering why she was so pleased that she didn't have to stretch her legs to keep up with him, that he didn't seem to be awkwardly cutting his own stride to stay with her. Maybe she'd caught some desert fever and her brain was swelling against her thick skull, short-circuiting all her hard-earned survival skills and making her see a friend where she ought to only see a stranger. She should leave, now, before this whole… _thing_ got even more out of her control.

Jyn stopped and turned to look up at him and tell him she had to go, and then blinked, struck dumb at what she saw. He frowned at her expression and dipped his head a little closer, lifting his hand as if to touch her cheek but stopping at the last second. His fingers hovered a millimeter from her cheek, but she barely noticed, still staring at him. “What's wrong?"

Jyn opened her mouth, but all she could think to say was _I can see stars in your eyes_ , and there was simply no way in any of the many hells that she was ever going to voice something as dramatically _sentimental_ as that. It was true, though – a dozen tiny lights flared in his dark eyes, looking exactly like stars in the night sky, and Jyn seriously considered that maybe she really  _did_ have some sort of fever.

Then he glanced behind her and lifted his head. “We're here,” he said softly, and Jyn turned around to look inside the open doors of the Infinite.

It took her a moment to process what she was seeing, but eventually she figured out that she was looking into what appeared to be an entirely black room, vast and open, with dark floors and walls polished to a mirror shine and even the distant vaulted ceiling painted pitch black. Glowing lanterns like the one the monk had carried were set at regular intervals throughout the space, most of them flickering with soft gold light, but a few green, red, and blue burned here and there.

But Jyn could tell, even from this distant viewpoint, that it was kyber crystals that gave this place its name. Long strings hung like silk strands from the ceiling in flowing curtains, shifting gently with every tiny breeze. The strands seemed to be arranged according to constellations, which were picked out in luminescent paint on the ceiling to mimic the night sky above them. Each strand was decorated with tiny chips of kyber, which caught the lamp light and cast it out again in tiny shimmers of color. That was what she had seen in his eyes, she realized, the reflection of these glittering crystals that swung gently in unseen currents and reflected off the inside of the dome until they appeared to stretch out through…well, infinity.

Wordlessly, Jyn slipped forward into the tiny cosmos.

The strands each hung from a "star" painted into the local constellations, and when Jyn looked up, the glittering strands gave the illusion that the constellations were streaming gently down towards her. Somewhere in the darkness, she heard another pilgrim whisper _its like the sky is falling_ and another one replied _or we are._ At her side, he murmured  _no soy yo mismo antes de la ascension,_ and though his voice was even, she heard a note of quiet sorrow threaded in the words.

She moved as if through a dream, watching her passage stir the nearest strands, feeling oddly weightless and anonymous and small in the vast starlit dark. Instinctively, she found herself scanning for the exits, and felt a rush of dizzy panic when she failed to pick any out of the endless shimmering lights. Unthinkingly, she reached out and grabbed for his hand, but missed and curled her fingers into his jacket. They were far enough in now that she could only see his outline, and the occasional wash of soft lamp light over his features. So she felt rather than saw him step closer and slide an arm carefully around her shoulders. “Alright?” he whispered near her ear, and Jyn answered by shoving herself against his side and wrapping her arm around his waist. His solid weight anchored her, his warmth pushed back against the darkness, and some of the vertigo settled.  

“It’s beautiful,” she said a little hoarsely, because it was. But she found herself staring at one of the gold lamps, and silently convincing herself that it wasn’t going to flicker out and leave her alone in the darkness. She curled her fingers tightly around his belt and let herself feel every centimeter where his body was pressed against hers. The light would not go out. She was not trapped. She was not alone.

Never again, she reminded herself. Never again.

“Lovely,” he agreed. “But it’s a bit…”

“Yes.”

“This way,” he said, and Jyn was glad to let him lead, glad that just this one time, she could rely on someone else while she fought her own demons.

They found another door quicker than she expected. Some priests in bright red robes were hanging thick black cloth curtains in front of every door to block the outside light, and Jyn breathed a quick sigh of relief when she understood that this was why she hadn’t been able to pick out any exits inside. _I was never trapped_ , she repeated to herself, and then against her will, her unruly mind added, _I was never alone_.

She glanced up at her…somehow _companion_ didn’t seem quite right anymore, and _stranger_ was a bit stupid when she was still tucked up against his side like a limpet, or a lover. They were out on the streets now, pushing their way through the crowds, but he made no move to drop his arm and she made none to pull away.  They moved at a measured pace, and even in her haze Jyn noticed how often he glanced up, marking catwalks and fire escapes, bird hutches and signal towers. It seemed sensible to focus her sweep lower down, checking open alley entrances as they went by, sweeping for signs they were being followed, marking the thinnest spots in the traffic to pass through. They stopped only once, at an intersection where a few brightly dressed Ogemite youths with painted head-feathers preformed acrobatic flips and tricks with bottles full of some kind of bioluminescent liquid. Jyn only gave the performers a cursory glance, much more invested in watching the crowd for the inevitable pickpocket - and there she was, a small Bothan with drab beige fur and a patched scarf who slipped quietly through the distracted crowd. Jyn caught her sharp yellow eye and gave her a significant glare, and the girl shrugged her boney shoulders, winked, and turned to work in a different direction. Against her side, she felt his ribs twitch in a choked off laugh, and then he reached out and semi-politely shoved a gawking Ryn merchant out of their way, and they escaped back into the flow of street traffic.

With the distraction gone and her...and the man seemingly lost in his own thoughts, her mind drifted back to the dome (though a small, shivering piece of her heart huddled under a metal hatch and waited for someone to come and pull her out). It _had_ been beautiful, and a little part of her wanted to remember what it was like, to walk through stars. But it had also been too...too much, too dark and quiet, and the golden lamps had far too closely resembled the little survival lamp her mother had left in the cave, which had given her six hours of light before plunging her into a day and a night of total darkness.

She was just starting to spiral down that rabbit hole when he took a deep breath, and looked down at her. “Do you have somewhere to stay?”

Jyn shook herself and tried to organize her brain so she could answer without compromising her mission (remember that mission? The whole reason she was _here_ , which was not, in fact, to swan about the city like a tourist on a date – yes, _Sergeant_ Erso, _that_ mission). Technically the answer was yes, she had somewhere to stay. The Alliance had given her the name of a local who supposedly had rebel sympathies, an older woman who lived alone above a mechanic’s shop. Jyn was supposed to give that woman a specific code phrase, and would be given a mat to sleep on and a meal if any could be spared. Of course, the intelligence flunky who had given her the mission brief had commented that the local woman’s grown son had apparently joined Imperial forces recently, so she would have to tread carefully in case he returned. Jyn grimaced at the thought.

“I’m good,” she said as neutrally as she could. She threw him what was meant to be a derisive smirk, but she couldn’t quite get the edge on it. It probably looked more uncertain than anything, and she wanted to smack herself for the, oh, _hundredth_ time today. “Why, you worried?”

“About you? Never.” His face was harder to see in the uneven lights of the city – Jedha really needed some kind of standardized lighting system, she thought irrelevantly – but his voice was warm and confident, and it made Jyn want to squirm. “I was just…”

“Curious?”

He chuckled, and Jyn leaned a little harder against him. “Yes.”

The breeze was picking up, the chill sharpening to an unpleasant bite. It was full night now, and the temperature was rapidly dropping.

They walked a little further in silence, dodging a rowdy group of drunken Aqualish and another lamp-lit procession of red-robed priests and pilgrims following in their wake. Jyn shivered again as a particularly sharp breeze worked its way through her jacket and trailed an icy stream across her back, and her...fuck it, her _friend_ (yes, that would do, that was what they had agreed on, right? her temporary friend) rubbed his hand against her upper arm for a moment to warm her up.

She should definitely end this now, before she froze out in the unforgiving desert night. The problem was that for the first time since Jyn was eight years old, she didn’t want to _leave_. Her life had been nothing but an endless cycle of moving on from one place to another, always outrunning the things that wanted to hunt her down and tear her apart. From what little she remembered of her mother's stories, Jyn Erso had been _born_ running, her mother hiding in a tent in a refugee camp, biting down on sticks to keep the guards from hearing her cries. Even life with Saw had felt unstable, surrounded by angry militiamen and mercenaries in the midst of war, and though she hadn’t wanted to leave her leader (guardian, friend, _father_ ) -

(the cruel irony was that Jyn never wanted to leave anyone she loved, but they always, always left her)

\- she hadn’t wanted to leave Saw, but she had never once felt safe with him, either.

And that was it, she realized with a nasty shock straight to her chest. That was why she was still here, wrapped around a man she had only just met and following him around the city like a kriffing puppy. For the first time in almost sixteen years, Jyn felt _safe_.

“What is it?” he asked, and she realized that they had stopped walking, or rather that _she_ had stopped and he had stopped with her.

“I - ” She tried, then snapped her mouth shut so fast that her teeth clicked, and shook her head, a mix of helplessness and rage knotting her insides and making her shake with more than cold.

“Here,” he tugged her out of the flow of the street traffic and into a relatively sheltered alley way. Both of them took a long moment to scan the shadowy space, but it was much shallower than the last one they had entered together, and no dangerous locals lurked within. “Are you alright?” he asked, once they both relaxed enough to let the other know they were in the clear.

Jyn stared at him, her mind buzzing, only distantly registering that she was now facing him, though his arm was still around her (her arm was still around him). Saw growled that she should run, right now, and snap his bones if he tried to stop her. Her Alliance trainer shook her head and told her to check him for signs of betrayal, signs of Imperial influence, and then extract herself before she gave something away.

Something burned warm against her chest, and Jyn raised her free hand to touch the lump of crystal under her collar. It was warm on her skin, and as her fingers pressed it tight against her collarbone, she thought she heard the muted sound of someone humming an old, familiar lullaby.

He was looking at her hand, watching her fingers fumble with something he couldn’t see. For a moment she felt a flash of panic – he couldn’t know what it was, he couldn’t be trying to steal it from her, he _couldn’t_ – and then he met her eyes and nodded once, calmly. “That one’s yours, is it not?” It was not really a question. He gave her his half-smile, eyes intent on her face, and her momentary panic collapsed in on itself. They had been around kyber crystals all day, and he had barely glanced at them except with a distant appreciation. If he was a smuggler, he was clearly successful enough at it to keep himself fed and warmly-dressed. He hadn't followed her for her crystal. He wasn't planning to kill her, or sell her to a slaver, or turn her over to Imperials. And it was his own rule that they ask no questions, so he hadn't probed for information about the rebellion, about Saw, or (worst of all, fuck, the idea made her sick) about her name. He was, she was honestly starting to think, exactly what he seemed: a man who just wanted to send time with a woman who interested him, no questions, no expectations, no catch.

No wonder she felt so fucking safe with him.

So Jyn did the only reasonable thing she could think to do; she stretched up on her toes and kissed him.

He responded instantly, unhesitating, tilting his head to fit better against her lips and sliding his free hand to the back of her neck. He shifted his feet to balance himself better, pulling her in and letting her brace against him so that she didn't have to keep all her weight on her toes. The kiss was unhurried and gentle, a far cry from every other she'd ever bothered to share with her few brief flings. He kept his arm steady around her shoulders and back, but his other hand slid from her neck to her loose bun, then down her side in a long, slow caress before reversing course and trailing back up again. For her part, Jyn let go of her kyber crystal and dug her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him down to her. Some of the weightless feeling from the Infinite seeped back into her, but this time it left her light and warm rather than small and lost. He exhaled heavily and she felt his breath, still faintly spiced from the tea, roll down her cheek and curl around her ear. A tiny part of her, a part that she had believed long rotten in the mud of Lah'mu (or crushed in an empty bunker on Tamsye Prime, or slowly bled to death in a dozen different rebel bases surrounded by people she barely knew) flared up inside her like a shower of sparks, all hot and bright and needy. When he pulled away (a short way, only far enough to look at her face) she nearly cried out in protest. _Don't let go_ , the spark whispered in her head, _don't let go, don't let go, don't go._

(gods of Force and fuck, she _needed_ to get out of here before she really embarrassed herself)

"I'm," he licked his lips distractedly, his jaw tight and his brow furrowed as some internal war waged behind his eyes. Jyn tilted her chin down and rested her forehead against his collarbone, giving him space (mentally, if not physically, because neither of them made any attempt to separate) so he could work through whatever it was. From the way he dropped his head to press his lips lightly against her hair, he was grateful for the respite. He muttered something she couldn't catch in that language that was probably from his homeworld (Fust? No, _Fest_ ) and then in a low, rough voice, "come with me?"

Jyn closed her eyes and curled her hands into fists against his shirt. She couldn't, it was a terrible idea, she would find herself robbed or killed or enslaved or heartbroken or all of the above at once...shite, she should have stabbed his kriffing hand and run like Dantari devil-beasts were chasing her -

"Just for tonight," he whispered against her temple.

When was the last time she had really felt safe?

"No names," she murmured softly against the hollow of his throat.

"No questions," he replied in the same tone.

"No tricks," she forced out in barely more than a whisper.

"It's a bargain," he kissed her cheek, her jaw, her throat, and then one more soft press to her lips.

If she was going to do this, she decided, then there was no sense going halfway. Jyn opened her eyes and tugged insistently at his hair until he looked up and met her gaze. She took a deep breath, and then said in a husky voice that made his jaw clench and his eyes darken, "so where are we going?"

Her friend smiled, recognizing the reference to their first bargain, and reluctantly loosened his hold enough to tuck her back against his side. "To see," he repeated lightly, and led her out of the alley.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dome of Deliverance is another place mentioned on wookiepedia and shown very briefly in a freeze-frame of Jedha City in the movie. I have not read the Guardians of the Whills book, so I once again took artistic liberties with what it is/looks like. I imagined a cross between a [planetarium show](https://www.google.com/search?q=planetarium+show&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj5-76S_4fWAhVLOiYKHfHgD7kQ_AUICygC&biw=1920&bih=963#imgrc=ulZN8oap3hCuHM:) and an [infinity room.](https://www.google.com/search?q=infinity+room&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiC5onM_4fWAhVDRSYKHQanDEEQ_AUICigB&biw=1920&bih=963#imgrc=RoNLtaYGgA0qPM:)
> 
> "no soy yo mismo antes de la ascension" = "I am not myself before the ascension," which is a slight tweaking of a line from [In Jerusalem](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52551/in-jerusalem), a poem by Mahmoud Darwish (the same poet that gave Jyn her swansong in "your words are mine to keep"). It seemed highly appropriate, both for the words and because Cassian is currently in what's sort of Star Wars' version of Jerusalem. I picked that line because it's basically saying that when contemplating divinity (in this case, infinity, but there's an argument that they are the same), you become a little less (a little more) than yourself. (The poem also has tones of a weary soldier starting to wonder exactly how righteous the war they've been fighting might actually be).
> 
> The Ogemite street performers are based on Chinese street performers like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qmvDL6qlCI). Ogemites are a race of what's essentially humans with feathers instead of hair. The Bothan pickpocket isn't any racist commentary - it's just a pretty common thing for pickpockets and thieves to target distracted crowds.
> 
> Tamsye Prime is the place that Saw dumped Jyn, although I'm a bit wary of Rebel Rising canon because it contradicts a lot of movie!Jyn canon, and I will always prefer the movie. Still, it was as good a place as any for that particularly painful betrayal. 
> 
> As a quick side note, re: the connections between Jyn, Cassian, and the mysterious blind monk...are they reincarnated? Joined by bonds of the Force? Caught in the magnified power of a million kyber crystals? Your call, mate.


	4. Yuanfen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re welcome to stay,” he said quietly, and Jyn nearly dropped her boot in shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am posting a non-explicit version of this chapter [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12004167), because some people aren't into that.
> 
> EDIT: Also, Ivaylo/@crazy-fruit made [art](http://crazy-fruit.tumblr.com/post/166175597972/creo-que-podr%C3%ADas-romper-mi-coraz%C3%B3n-you) for this chapter, and it's beautiful! Thank you so much; you're very talented!

 

His lodgings turned out to be a rented room in a modestly busy inn built into the slope of the great southern wall, only about a ten minute walk from a small space port. The inn was set roughly four stories up, and they had to climb a winding stone staircase past a small theater and a noodle shop. The inn took up about five stories on it's own, and when she stretched her head back she could see a dozen more levels of windows and open doors, progressively fancier and more expensive looking as they went up. When they reached the first level of the inn, Jyn could just see the Temple of Kyber rising above the tops of the nearest buildings. The roaring of landing and departing space craft made for a constant, if muted, background to the noise of the street crowd. Jyn mentally marked her location by both the Temple and the port, and figured that if this really did turn out to be too good to be true, she’d have a convenient means of escape nearby.

“I don’t like the main door,” her friend said quietly as he steered her towards a side entrance, his arm tensing just slightly around her like he anticipated an angry response.

She leaned her head to see the big front door was wide open, lights strung up all around it, and a bearded, dark skinned man in grey robes who had to be the owner bustling among the incoming crowds, cheerfully welcoming every pilgrim like an old friend  and offering drinks. “Too busy,” Jyn agreed, and felt her lip curl slightly with mild disapproval. “Too friendly.”

He looked at her with humor in his eyes, though his face stayed serious. “The owner is from a long line of Jedhan innkeepers. He considers the old laws of hospitality to be sacred.”

“The laws say you have to greet everyone as they come in?”

“The laws say that any being you welcome into your home is yours to honor and protect, so long as they honor you in turn,” he reached up with his free hand and tapped lightly on a long line of swirling Jedhan script that was enscribed down the hallway of the lodge house in red and gold paint. Jyn couldn’t read the flowing letters well, but she remembered some of the street vendors’ wares and picked out the old Jedhan word for _guardian_ and _protect_.  She assumed the script must be a reminder of whatever law the innkeeper followed, painted all along the middle of the walls on either side, curving away around the corner. He led her down the entire hall, to a narrow door set at the very end, near yet another side entrance. A window with thick glass was set into the wall opposite of the door, and Jyn approved. Multiple possible exits, she thought. He came to a stop in front of the narrow door and reached into his heavy jacket for some kind of key card.

“What does shaking everyone’s hand have to do with protecting them?” Jyn grumbled, largely to fill the silence as he keyed in the door and typed a code (771974F, she stowed the information away, just in case) into the lockpad.

“I think that is just his personal preference,” he raised an eyebrow at her as the door slid open with only a little creak. “He is a…people person,” he said the phrase carefully, like it was foreign on his tongue. Jyn could empathize; she didn’t understand how some people seemed to just… _like_ being around others, all the time. It seemed like an exhausting way to live.

Jyn twitched her shoulders in a tiny shrug, but they were both so tightly pressed together that she knew he felt it. “I don’t like fuss.”

“No,” he replied quietly, withdrawing his arm and walking into the small room. “You don’t seem the type.”

 _And how,_ Jyn almost asked, _would you know?_ But that was the point, wasn’t it? That they weren’t asking questions, especially those kinds of questions. She was here for…for what, exactly? Another quick fuck in a dark corner? A few more minutes of something that felt like safety? _De nar ere’bus haalas,_ this was such a bad idea. She must have gone completely crazy, to let a strange man drag her into his dark room…except, well, the argument fell a bit flat when he wasn’t actually _dragging_ her, was he? Jyn hovered in the open doorway and watched him flick on a small, blueish lamp, shrug off his heavy parka and hang it neatly on a hook by the reasonably comfortable-looking bed. A small fresher was visible through a door across from the bed, and worn backpack was propped against the nightstand. Far from coercing her, he seemed to be making a point of not even looking at her, casually sitting on a plain but well-polished chair and pulling off his boots. She had the feeling that if she simply turned around and walked away, he wouldn’t even try to stop her. He might be disappointed, but he wouldn’t stop her.

Her shoulders felt cold where his arm had been.

Jyn stepped in and tapped the door release. Only once it had swooshed slowly closed did he look up from his boots, and his smile was small and careful but so warm that Jyn had to bite her cheek again to stop the flush from spreading across her face. Jyn shifted her weight for another moment, wondering if there was something she was supposed to say, or if she should just, what, strip down? Grab him and throw him at the bed?

In the gentle light of the blue lamp, he looked almost unreal. He looked even thinner than she expected without the parka – maybe he wasn’t as successful a smuggler after all. But though the sharpness of his jaw and the shadows in his eyes spoke of a hard life, his skin and hair were healthy, no scurvy or other signs of starvation. His clothes were worn but clean and well-maintained, and his boots, now that she had a good view of them, were of fairly high quality. No, whatever it was that hollowed his cheeks and left him just a touch too thin was not a lack of food. She supposed he had his own demons – and she’d promised not to ask. She didn’t _want_ to ask. 

Jyn lifted her eyes from his boots to his face, and found him giving her the same measured, considering gaze she was sweeping over him. She saw him taking in her own thick, scuffed boots, her patched trousers and the visible edges of at least two shirts under a sleeveless jacket. Her fingerless gloves were frayed but well-oiled, with an extra strip of leather worked over the knuckles for padding. Jyn knew she was not very intimidating at first glance; her clothes were baggy enough to hide the definition of her muscles. Her face was too delicate, her eyes too wide to look like someone who knew seven ways to destroy a human male’s testicles with her bare hands. A few years ago, a Pathfinder had told her once that she looked like one of those fragile Corellian dolls going through a rebellious teenager phase. Since she had actually been a rebellious teenager at the time, Jyn had not taken it well. (That particular Pathfinder had spent the night in the medward with an ice pack in his lap and still tended to flinch when he saw her around the base.)

She wondered what _he_ saw, as he raised his eyes to meet hers again. Since she was still lingering uncertainly by the door, she probably looked a far cry from the woman who had pulled a knife on him the moment they met. The thought made her irrationally angry, and mentally she told herself to stop being such a snotbrain and muscle up. She’d made her choice.

The smile was back in his eyes, and she just knew that he was watching her shake off the nervousness with a strange sort of fondness. Jyn decided that she wasn’t in the mood for _fondness_.

She stalked across the room, watching his hands, his eyes, one final sweep to look for the catch, the trap. If he was pulling anything, this would be the moment he would do it, she figured.

He sat very still in the chair, hands splayed on his knees, face impassive but eyes locked on hers. She reached his knees, stopping just short of touching him, and still he did not move. He barely seemed to breathe. Slowly, carefully, she stretched out her hand and let her fingertips hover a breath away from his cheek, looking him right in the eye and waiting.

“Yes,” he said softly. “If you do.”

The uncertain knot in her gut eased, and briskly Jyn pulled her hand back (he didn’t move, but a surprised sort of disappointment flashed in his eyes before he caught it) so she could strip off her gloves and toss them onto the night table by the blue lamp. Then she snapped open the clasp to her synth-weave belt and let her truncheons and back-holstered vibroblade slide off her thighs and waist, hanging the lot over the corner post of the bed. Before he could react to that, she leaned over and slid both her hands across his cheekbones, over his ears, and into his hair, tilting his face up so she could bend her head and kiss him. It was a little awkward, because she was still leaning over his legs and refusing to balance on him, but she didn’t try to push closer and he didn’t pull her in.

However strange the angle, the kiss was just as warm, just as welcoming as it had been in the street, and Jyn took a deep breath as he opened his mouth and let her slide her tongue along the inside of his lip. She took a moment to appreciate the last faint taste of the tea, and then pulled away carefully.

His hands were still on his knees, although now his fingertips dug into his trousers and his knuckles were a little paler. Thoughtfully, Jyn shrugged off her light jacket and after a moment’s consideration, turned and hung it on the hook, directly over his parka, shooting him a look over her shoulder as she did. He gave a soft huff of laughter and nodded, and Jyn matched his slight smile as she unwound her scarf and flung it casually over both coats. Then she stepped a little closer, this time letting her knees touch his, and this time held her fingertips just over his shoulders. It took him a moment to realize that she was waiting, possibly because he seemed to be staring at her mouth, but when she quirked the corner of her lips at him he blinked and glanced at her wrists. He met her eyes again and raised his eyebrows, but she kept her hands where they were until he nodded. Then she settled her palms against his shoulders and leaned in again to kiss him. He lifted his mouth to meet her eagerly, and this time the kiss was just a little more urgent, a little less soft.

She broke it off again a moment later, and pushed away to reach for her overshirt’s buttons. He let out a long breath and shook his head. “You tease,” he said softly, and Jyn smiled as she flicked the buttons open one by one.

“No,” she replied, because a tease was someone who didn’t intend to follow through. She shrugged out of the overshirt and dropped it on the floor, leaving her in just her plain cotton thermal top, dark grey trousers and her boots. Gently she nudged his knees with hers, and he let her step between them – an act of trust that made her stomach clench, if she allowed herself to think about it – and she held her hands over his chest until he nodded again. It was easier to lean down this time, balancing with his heartbeat under her hand. He licked inside her mouth and she scraped her teeth lightly over his tongue, flexing her fingers against his pectoral muscles and feeling him arch up a little, pushing against her hands. This time when she pulled away he let out a small noise in the back of his throat, a not-quite groan that rekindled the shower of sparks in her belly.

Jyn’s own patience was starting to fray, and she grabbed the edge of her cotton shirt and yanked it over her head, and when her vision cleared she saw that his lips were pressed tight into a thin line and his hands were definitely clamping down on his knees hard enough to look painful. But he still sat, completely unmoving, waiting for her cue.  

So this time, Jyn pushed a little closer between his legs and rested her hands just over the backs of his. He tilted his head a little, and for the first time he looked hesitant. Finally, though, he relaxed his fingers and lifted his hands slightly until they touched her own, and Jyn wound her fingers around his wrists and lifted them to her waist. Still, he stopped just shy of touching her and looked at her with the same question she’d asked him before. Jyn nodded, and tried not to jump when he slid his warm palms over the bare skin above her trousers, fitting his fingers around the curve of her waist.

The restless feeling was back, tensing her muscles, making her skin feel flushed and a little too tight, but when she moved to kiss him again he remained obstinately gentle, almost infuriatingly slow. And this time, he was the one to pull back, pulling away from her waist and capturing her hands. The look in his eye was almost challenging when he tugged on her wrists, dragging her down his chest to where his own plain brown shirt was still tucked into his trousers. He let go when her fingers were only a millimeter away from his belt buckle, and then reached again for her waist.

“Tease,” Jyn muttered at him, mostly just to annoy him.

“No,” he replied, eyes crinkling with muted humor.

She had started this game, but it was becoming clear to her that he had far more patience than she did, which meant he was definitely more likely to win it. So Jyn changed the rules.

Deftly, she unhooked his belt and tugged his shirt free, and before he could react, she threw her leg over his and slid into his lap. His hands twitched around her waist, and he lifted his head in surprise. Jyn paused only long enough to make eye contact, long enough for him to nod, to give permission, and then she pressed forward and kissed him as hard she could. She thought he would fall back, let her control the kiss, but instead he surged up, hands sliding up her back to dig into her bare muscles and mouth hard against hers.

Jyn gasped slightly, unprepared for him to turn the tables on her, and he immediately backed off, his touch gentling against her skin. “Sorry,” he said in a hoarse voice, but Jyn shook her head and shifted closer on his lap, not quite pressed against him but close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his body. She reached down and grabbed the bottom of his shirt and tugged it slightly, chin tilted down and eyebrows raised.

He chuckled again, a brief, low sound that rolled down her spine and made her legs tighten around his thighs. He felt it, because he leaned back and dropped his hands to her legs, the smile back in his eyes. She tugged again, and he nodded and helped her pull his shirt off, and though he tried to snag it from her, she tossed it over her shoulder to land somewhere near her own and immediately occupied herself with raking her fingers through the dark hair on his chest. His breath caught slightly as she trailed down his stomach and brushed over the button at the top of his trousers. In response, he ran his fingers down her legs to the tops of her boots, and when she nodded, prepared to shift away so that she could pull them off, he surprised her by tugging the laces free on both sides and hooking his thumbs into the tops to shove them away. _Neat trick_ , she thought, followed quickly by _clever hands_. Her thoughts after that were slightly incoherent, and she only just noticed when he deftly stripped off her socks too.

He leaned forward slightly, his arms going around her as if to hug her, but then she heard two soft thuds and realized he’s tossed her boots onto the pile of her shirts, and she smirked at him. So he was some kind of neat freak, it seemed. The thought was a little funny, but it also reminded her how little she actually knew about him.

“Hey,” Jyn dipped her head so she could look him in the eyes, face serious. “You have to tell me if there’s anything…anything you don’t like,” she fumbled for the words. “Anything you don’t want.”

He didn’t respond for a long moment, only looked up at her, considering and careful. Jyn concentrated on keeping her breathing slow and even rather than holding it entirely as she waited. At last he said, “I don’t like to be tied up.”

Jyn nodded. “Me neither.”

He took a long, deep breath and closed his eyes briefly, as if he’d thought she would react badly and was relieved now by her easy response. “I don’t like to be called insults,” Jyn said softly, and he opened his eyes again. “Like bitch or whore. Not _here_ ,” she clarified, tilting her head first down towards the bed and then towards the door. “I get plenty of that out _there_.”

He reached up and placed one hand gently against her face. “I don’t mind…rough,” he said very slowly and carefully, like he was pulling each word from somewhere deep inside himself, “but please don’t ask me to hurt you.”

Jyn blinked, and then despite herself laughed aloud. It was a soft sound, and she smothered it quickly. “I guess I get plenty of _that_ out there, too,” she chuckled, then paused, because he was staring at her like she’d just smacked him across the face. “What?” she demanded uneasily.

“ _Creo que podrías romper mi corazón,”_ he said in an oddly detached voice.

Jyn frowned at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” he cleared his throat and shook his head a little, like a man emerging from underwater, “it means that I like your laugh.”

“Hm,” Jyn eyed him suspiciously.

“But it’s true,” he told her firmly. “I would like to see you laugh again.”

Jyn smirked at him and rolled her eyes slightly to cover the odd little twist of pleased awkwardness that comment evoked. “You plan to tell jokes all night, stranger?”

“Stranger?” His mouth curved up into that damn half-smile, the one that ignited her nerves and made something go tight in her chest. “Is that what you’ve been calling me?”

 _Only at first_ , she thought, but still retained enough sense not to say out loud. Instead she shook a lock of hair out of her eyes and said, “Why not? What have you been calling me?”

He ran a hand up her back, dragging his fingertips along the curve of her spine before cupping his palm around the back of her neck. He leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to her neck, and Jyn shivered slightly at the touch. “Stay long enough,” he murmured against the hollow of her throat, “and you might find out.”

“Okay,” she breathed, and tried not to think about what she was agreeing to.

They moved considerably faster after that.

She dragged his hands up to the catch of her combat bra, he seized her by the hips and hauled her lower body flush against his. The heat and the pressure made both of them groan softly, and then laugh again as their eyes met, awkward and amused all at once. She bit her lip, leaned in, then sealed her mouth against his throat and sucked a bruise against his pulse point. He held himself unnaturally still until she pulled away and pressed a soft kiss over the mark, and then he wrapped his arms around her waist and lunged, shoving them up to their feet. Jyn stumbled, but her hands were already at the front of his trousers again, and she barely had to wait before he gasped _yes_ against her shoulder.  Jyn shrugged her shoulders and pushed at his chest until he relaxed his grip, and then she undid the zipper and pushed at the last of his clothes until he stood naked before her.

He didn’t give her much time to appreciate the sight of his long, lean body though, shivering as the cooler air of the room hit him and stepping back to pull her in tight against him. He was too tall for her to reach without his cooperation, but she stood on her toes again and rolled her hips against him until he staggered slightly and lifted her against him. Abruptly, he loosened his grip and dropped her back to her feet, and with a strange look on his face reached down between them until his hand came to rest on her inner thigh. Jyn blinked at him, and then couldn’t stop the laughter that burst out of her again (son of a bantha bitch in heat, she hadn’t laughed this much in _years_ ) as he found the hidden pocket in her trousers and pulled the short, wedge-shaped blade with a thin ring in place of a hilt. “Katar,” she managed, fighting to get herself under control. He raised an eyebrow at her and held the blade in the flat of his hand; it was so small that it barely covered half of his palm. “Push knife,” she elaborated, plucking it from his hand and wiggling three of her fingers through it, settling it like brass knuckles and holding up her fist to demonstrate.

He stared at her for a moment, then lowered his head to press against her neck. “Seven,” he said softly, and she blamed the brush of his lips against her throat for the confusion, because all she could manage was an idiotic _huh?_ “I miscounted,” he explained, and blindly plucked the blade from her fingers and set it on the nightstand by her truncheons and vibroblade, his face still pressed against the curve of her neck and breath hot across her throat. “I missed the blade in your…”

“Lower extremities?” she offered, hands busy kneading a line down his lower back and the muscles of his ass. “Groin area? Apex?” His chest shook with silent laughter against her, and she felt him slip his own hands to her trousers, holding the zipper still until she nodded against his shoulder and tilted her hips to give him better access. She took advantage of the small space he made between them to work her zipper by scraping her fingernails lightly around his thighs and down the defined vee of his inner hips. “Crotch zone? Inguinal region?” And in her best deadpan voice, she added, “Honey pot?”

He shoved at her trousers with more force than was strictly necessary, clearly torn between laughter and desire. She shimmied helpfully to roll the material down her legs, and while she was distractedly kicking them off, he knelt in front of her. Jyn froze, staring at him. He was still smiling, looking up at her with his hands bracing her hips. He waited patiently, letting her process his silent question, until at length she took a deep breath and whispered, “You sure…?”

He gave her a pointed look, and flexed his fingers on her hips meaningfully.

Jyn knew the general mechanics of oral sex – she had been a soldier in communal barracks since she was eight, hells, living among Saw’s cadre had practically made her an expert in most kinds of humanoid sex before she even hit puberty – but she had never come close to trusting anyone with that level of access to her body, that level of control. She wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to do, just lie there and take it?

She didn’t even know his _name_.

He was still waiting, and she’d been right about one thing – he was significantly more patient than she had ever been.

She supposed it might be nice to try, and if ever there was a partner who might be safe enough to allow it, it was him. Whoever the fuck he was. He saw her make her decision, tilted his chin a little down enquiringly. “Yeah,” she told him. “If you want.”

Shit, she really had lost her mind.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her left thigh, right over the spot her katar had rested, and then with a quick glance at her for final confirmation, he pushed her firmly backwards. Jyn almost made an undignified noise as she stumbled back until her knees caught on the bed and she ended up sprawled on the edge of the mattress, glaring at him. He met her glare with an unimpressed smirk and settled himself between her open knees. Jyn wound her fingers into the green-patterned blanket and ordered herself not to snap her legs closed. She could do this. He wasn’t going to hurt her.

“Hey,” he called softly, and she looked up to meet his eyes. He hitched her leg and set it over his shoulder, and she couldn’t help the little shiver, half anticipation, half nerves. “Anytime you want,” he soothed her, and oh fuck, she could feel his breath on her cunt, “we’ll stop.” He waited again, and Jyn let her shoulders relax.

“Anytime you want,” she echoed softly, “you can stop.”

That seemed to startle him; he nodded solemnly back at her.

And then his tongue was moving on her clit and _holy fucking Force_ she had never thought it would feel like _that,_ and the heat flared in her belly, coiled tight and low inside her. He spread his hands against her hips and arse and lifted her up for a better angle, the flat of his tongue sliding along her cunt like silk and Jyn said something filthy in Bocce, or maybe it was Huttese, hell if she could remember a moment later. But his breath hitched in that low chuckle, a sound that she was already half in love with anyway but this time she could _feel_ it in her body like a shock of pure pleasure and she gasped again.

He closed his mouth gently around her clit suddenly, his tongue brushing soft and fast, and Jyn swallowed back her moan, but couldn’t stop the way her legs shivered and her hips jerked in his grip. For the first time in her life, Jyn let her head fall back, let her back arch up, and distantly felt her toes curling into his sides.  

Her orgasm hit her almost entirely by surprise, harder and faster than any she’d ever had. She didn’t cry out, trained too well through pain and experience to draw attention to vulnerability, but she felt the muscles in her spine snap into a tight arch, her legs quivering and clamping down around his shoulders (she didn’t dare press her knees together, afraid to hurt him, afraid to mess this up) and her breath caught in her lungs while her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

He kept his mouth against her as she shuddered and came, watching her with that intent expression she had seen before – once in the alley after the fight, and again on the wall when she’d reappeared with hot tea for two. Dimly, her eyes squeezed tight and her knuckles white against the blanket, Jyn thought that if he’d been looking at her like that in the tea shop, then it was no kriffing wonder she’d known he was there. There was a weight to that expression, as physical as if he were running his hands everywhere he looked.

Finally, her muscles released the tension like a string being cut, and she collapsed down against the bed. He stayed where he was, kneeling between her shaking knees and watching her, waiting. Jyn forced her languid arms to push herself up onto her elbows so she could look at him. Then she smiled, because honestly, the man had earned it, and cocked her head at him, _come up here_.

He pulled himself up slowly, moving with her as she adjusted to lie properly on the bed, and when she hooked a leg around his waist and flipped him onto his back, he went willingly, silent and careful as before. Jyn straddled him, positioned herself over him, and then stopped, because out in the city he had been sharp and strange and dangerous, but here and now she saw that he was also beautiful and familiar and _safe._ And those three things she had never imagined she would find in anyone, let alone all in one person.

He skimmed his fingers up her stomach, over her breast, circling her nipple once, then up again to the hollow of her throat, the curve of her cheek, and at last combing them through her hair and back down to her shoulder. Jyn chased his hand with her own, caught it and brought it to her mouth to press a kiss to his knuckles. Then she slipped her hand down between them and guided him in to her.

His eyes dropped half-closed as she rolled her hips again, taking him inside, but his hands moved restlessly over her body, soft caresses that were astonishingly effective at driving her out of her skin all over again. She gave herself a few slow, gentle thrusts around him, because it had been awhile and her body needed a moment to adjust. He didn’t seem to mind, his clever hands tracing designs up her belly to the curve of her breasts and then down to her clitoris again, idly drawing small, tight circles over her sensitive core until she pushed them away and changed the pace. He closed his eyes as she set a hard, steady rhythm, tired of playing, and eager to level the playing field, eager to see what he looked like when he wasn’t in control. She felt him tensing under her, his hips stuttering up to meet her, and she planted her hands on his chest and leaned over him. “Look at me,” she ordered softly, and then softer still, “please.”

He opened his eyes and she saw starlight again.

She tightened her pelvic muscles, watching him, letting him see her question, and when he drew in a great shuddering breath and exhaled _yes,_ she leaned down to catch his mouth with her own and sped up, an almost brutal pace, until he broke and dug his hands into her hips hard enough to bruise, his breath harsh against her mouth and his body shaking beneath her. Suddenly he slammed up against her, and he jerked his head away to press his mouth to her shoulder, clearly holding his breath to prevent himself from making any sound. Like her, she registered, because somewhere in his life he, too, had learned to hide any hint of weakness.

He shuddered once more under her, and Jyn wound herself around him as best she could and clenched once more, then again. She relaxed and let him breathe for a moment, then tightened again without warning, and smirked when he swore in surprise. She could feel him softening inside her (another new sensation to add to her growing list, because karking hells, she was learning more in one night than she’d picked up in a year, before him), but she relaxed and then tightened again and this time when he swore she lifted her head to look at him smugly.

“You are trying to kill me,” he huffed, struggling to even his breathing back out, and Jyn shook her head and did it again.

He arched a little into it, too wrung out to retaliate but clearly not objecting either. It felt good, knowing that he was letting her torment him like this, knowing that after she’d given him control earlier, he had given it right back to her.

Finally, slowly, she pulled away and sat back, still straddling him but allowing him to recover, while her own muscles ached with a pleasant sort of soreness.

To her surprise, he sat up, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close again. He wasn’t ready _again_ , was he? Jyn tentatively returned the embrace, and wiggled closer experimentally, but no, he wasn’t hard against her already.

He was just holding her.

It felt…was nice the right word? Warm, comforting, if a little sticky. Yeah, alright, _nice_.

Fuck, it wasn’t like she had a lot of context.

“There’s a sonic in there,” he said in her ear, as if he could read her thoughts, and tilted his head casually towards the fresher.

“Me first?” she asked in mild surprise, though she supposed she really shouldn’t have been, considering that he’d made sure she came first, too.

“Mm.” He rested his chin on her shoulder and leisurely ran a hand up and down her back. “It’s a bit small, or I’d offer to share with you.”

Jyn considered it, and then nodded. “Thanks.”

And then she stayed right where she was. Once she was up, she knew, once she was clean, she would get dressed. And then she would leave, because it was the only sensible thing to do, the only smart thing, the only thing she knew how to do.

He kept up his steady caress on her back, and didn’t mention it.

But even her newfound madness couldn’t overcome years of conditioning, and eventually she couldn’t stand being naked for so long, and reluctantly squirmed out of his arms and off of his lap. He let her go with the same sluggish moves, like he was forcing himself to move away, and she avoided his eye as she made for the fresher. She almost closed it, but one last surviving thread of suspicion told her to leave it open, so if he pulled anything she would see it coming.

It felt ridiculous, but then, better ridiculous than, well, stupid.

He was right, the fresher was so small that the toilet was nearly under the sonic panel, and she took the most efficient shower of her life, in and out in under three minutes. Even so, he’d already managed to separate and fold both of their clothes, only leaving his trousers draped neatly over the back of the chair. She raised an eyebrow at him as she made for her stack, and he shrugged and dropped a kiss to her cheek as he passed, and she brushed her hand across his hip in turn. He showered almost as fast as she had, and she’d only managed to get her trousers and undershirt back on when he came back out and slid into his trousers.

He watched her reach for her boots, and she straightened under his scrutiny, one boot in her hand. “What?”

“You’re welcome to stay,” he said quietly, and Jyn nearly dropped her boot in shock.

“I…can’t,” she replied at last.

He nodded, and his face was already starting to smooth out to the distant, polite expression he’d worn when the Decraniated had approached them. It sparked a strange sort of revulsion in her, an anger she wasn’t ready to examine but wasn’t able to ignore. Now she did drop the boot, and moved so fast to him that it was just shy of a charge. Rougher than she’d been all night, she grabbed his face and dragged him down, kissing him like a blow, like a bite, like a challenge. He fought back, hands painfully tight in her loose hair, bending her backwards as he used his height to his advantage, but Jyn gave as good as she got, and she was the one to end it at last. She left him breathing hard again, lips swollen and hands opening and closing restlessly on her shoulders, like he was arguing with himself whether to let her go or yank her in again.

“I can’t,” she whispered, “but I want to,” she confessed, and the last of the mask slipped away. He looked down at the floor for a moment, then back at her, nodding, a sad understanding in his eyes.

“I feel like I know you,” he told her.

“That’s crazy,” she said solemnly.

“Insane.”

She brushed his hair out of his eyes and smiled. “Me too.”

Then she dropped her hands and stepped away, reaching for her boots again. This time, he simply stood there, not moving until she was fully dressed. As she wound her scarf around her neck, he held out his hand, the katar on his palm. She picked it up, hesitated, then set it back. He startled, looking from the blade to her, and Jyn felt that strange madness rushing through her blood again. She wrapped his fingers carefully around the little blade, lifted his knuckled to her lips to press a brief kiss to them.

And before she could think about it anymore, before she could get herself into even more trouble, she turned on her heel and walked out the door.

She was six blocks away before she realized the warm wetness on her face was tears.

 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Yuanfen" is a complicated Chinese term that can be translated as ["binding force"](http://bigthink.com/harpys-review/the-top-10-relationship-words-that-arent-translatable-into-english) or ["fated to come together,"](https://www.24hchina.com/yuanfen/) but doesn't necessarily mean that you will _stay_ with each other. There really isn't an English or Spanish word (that I know of) that described a person you might love but don't stay with, so space!Chinese to the rescue. We'll call it "Old Jedhan" and go with that.
> 
> I modeled the inn, and Jedha's practice of building into the defensive wall that rings it, after the Chinese city of [Xi'an](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi%27an), which is a totally cool city, even without the Terracotta Army.
> 
> The Jedhan innkeeper’s code of behavior is modeled after the [Pashtunwali](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali#Main_principles), which I have only mild personal experience with but have had friends whose lives were saved in Afghanistan because locals granted them [melmastia](http://nation.com.pk/columns/06-Aug-2013/understanding-pashtunwali). The Jedhan innkeeper does not follow these laws exactly, because his inn is a business, but think of it along those lines. This is important to the story only because I believe Cassian would either stay somewhere extremely busy and anonymous (difficult in a city like Jedha) or somewhere reasonably small where the owner is culturally conditioned to never betray or surrender a guest to hostile forces, even unto death. 
> 
> “De nar ere’bus haalas” = Mandalorian curse, some “official” and some of my own invention, which basically translates to “by my rebellious guts.” Yes, this is yet another reference to my personal headcanon that Mando’a culture considers the loss of bodily control/autonomy to be the worst possible thing, thus making all the Mandalorian clones in the clone wars even more horrific when you recall they were suddenly and without warning deprived of any control over their bodies and forced to kill all their Jedi friends. Come, be sad about that with me, and invent terrible curses for Jyn to hurl.
> 
> “[Jyn] knew seven ways to destroy a human male’s testicles with her bare hands” is a reference to [this post](%E2%80%9C), and all the commentary that tumblr added. Frankly, this sounds to me like it was written by various women in the Alliance. An interesting and informative read.
> 
> A [katar](%E2%80%9C) is a super nifty push dagger. It’s like brass knuckles with an attitude problem, and easier to hide in your clothes, particularly in the, you know, lower extremities.
> 
> Speaking of which, inguinal region is, in fact, a real term for the, ahem, crotch area. Near the apex, if you will. 
> 
> I imagine that sonic showers are less a "shower head" and rather two panels set opposite each other in the ceiling and floor, so that the waves can bounce back and forth and hit the person from every angle, because water runs down into those nooks and crannies on an organic body, but sonic waves, not so much. See, I told you I overthink everything.
> 
> This is only the second time I've written smut, and it was even harder the second time around because I just kept trying to write the same scene again. Urgh. Let me know if something was super ridiculous or OOC.


	5. Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was turning out to be a very strange mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY so this was supposed to be the final chapter and the big reveal, but it got waaaay out of hand because I Have Opinions and also couldn't rest until I'd somehow worked Baze and Bodhi into this. Sort of. 
> 
> So now it's at least 6 chapters and I make no promises after that.

The mechanic’s shop was in a building so old that the doors were actually on rollers, and had to be pushed open and closed by hand. No release latches, no lockpads, no servo motors; Jyn had seen unpowered doors before, of course, had even lived in places with little more than a cloth tacked across the openings, but the mechanic’s shop was in a relatively nice district, so the shabbiness was somewhat surprising. Hells, there was a brand new Biscuit Baron at the end of the street, and what looked like a higher-end club on the other. But however outdated the building, it was clearly well-maintained and cared for. The main door was painted an intricate pattern of yellow and red flowers, and the side door where Jyn slipped up and knocked was blue with a pink and white mandala of some kind painted in the center. It took a while for anyone to answer – understandable, when it was nearly dawn – but eventually the sound of multiple locks (metal locks, the kind that were physically attached to the door, because _shit on a crusty stick_ , this place was _old_ ) scraped and clattered open, and then a sharp eyed, dark skinned woman peered out through the cracked door.

“Hello, my friend,” Jyn said quietly, glancing around to see if anyone was close enough to hear. “I have completed my sojourn from the east.”

The woman was silent for a moment, and Jyn was just about to pretend to be lost and mistaken about the house when she finally said in a gentle, slightly breathless voice, “Hello, my friend. Did you see the luminous red nova to the west?”

That was it, the code phrase for asset #YR04. Jyn’s shoulders relaxed marginally (but not all the way, because she never relaxed all the way, she was never safe enough for _all the way,_ and she’d forgotten that rule for a moment but that was over now). She shrugged and replied breezily, “No, I fear the barycenter has held too well.”

The woman nodded, and the door slid open enough for Jyn to slip through into the relative dark of the shop. “Come,” the woman said, still in that breathless voice, and led Jyn through a dim garage full of engine and droid parts; the equipment was old and worn, but the shop was clean and neatly organized. The woman herself wore faded blue coveralls and work boots that looked slightly too big, but she, too, was clean and neatly put together, her dark hair braided sensibly on her head and no dangling jewelry or loose cloth to catch in machine parts.

The woman led her to a narrow staircase and paused at the foot, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes as if bracing for something unpleasant. Jyn stopped short, suspicion instantly burning in her belly and curling her hands around her truncheon grips. But then the woman reached out and grabbed the railing of the staircase with a slightly shaky hand and began to painfully haul herself up, one stair at a time, and Jyn realized what her hesitation had been about – and why she had been so short of breath when she answered the door.

“A poor heart,” the woman panted softly, noticing Jyn’s stare and stopping midway up the stairs. “But a strong will,” she added, with a faint wink, and started determinedly upwards again.

Jyn followed, and found herself wishing she could just reach out and pick the woman up. She was taller than Jyn, certainly, but so thin and delicate-featured that she looked like a strong breeze could lift her. She contented herself with following just a little closer than polite convention, close enough that if the woman collapsed, Jyn could maybe catch her before her bird-like bones could strike against the hard wooden steps.

They reached the top at last, and the woman stopped for a several breaths before guiding Jyn down a short hallway to a little apartment above the garage. It was only two small rooms, a kitchen with a little space to sit before an old holoscreen, and a door to the side into what looked like a bedroom. “Now,” the woman said, making her way to the kitchen and picking up a length of yellow cloth, hemmed in green and pink patterns. She wound the cloth over her head and draped the rest artfully down her shoulder and around her waist, and instantly the dull blue coveralls became a mere background accent to the colorful wrap. The bright yellow lessened some of the paleness around the woman’s eyes and mouth, and made her dark eyes look significantly livelier. She sat gingerly at the table and gestured for Jyn to sit opposite. “Please, my guest, refresh yourself.” She fluttered a thin but elegant hand at a small platter in the middle of the table, and Jyn lifted the cover to see warm chapati bread stacked next to three small bowls of mixed meats, vegetables, and some greenish sauce she didn’t recognize.

“Thanks,” Jyn said, swallowing. “But it’s very late, and I should let you rest.”

The woman sighed, and folded her hands on the table before her. “You are a touch later than I expected,” she said gently, “But I do not rest well, these days, and I was already awake for the day. Please, eat. You are a guest, and you have had a long journey.”

 _Longer than I meant to_ , Jyn thought a little darkly, and then shook herself to push away that thought. “Thank you,” she said again, and made herself a little wrap from the bowls. She noticed the woman hiding a smile and frowned, chapati half-way to her mouth. “What?”

“All meat and sauce, no _bhurtha_ ,” the woman said chidingly. “That is not how one grows strong.”

Jyn blinked, because it had been a long time since anyone had scolded her for not eating her vegetables. But then, today seemed to be all about exactly these kinds of surprises, and _karking hells_ , she was just too exhausted to wonder why. Maybe the universe or the Force or whatever was trying to tell her something, but frankly, if the message was “one night stands and kind strangers are as close to love and family as you will ever get,” then the universe could go fuck itself.

Slowly, she lowered the wrap, flipped it open, and spooned some of the…whatever those plants were…into the wrap before taking a bite. She really wasn’t hungry ( _the taste of tea lingered on her tongue, and the salt of sweat on skin_ ) but she ate the little wrap and drank the fruit juice her host poured, and tried not to think about anything but how she’d need the calories come morning.

The woman nodded with approval as she finished. “I do not mean to speak rudely,” she smiled and tilted her head, “It is only that my son is about your age, and he was never good with his vegetables either. I suppose it becomes a mother’s habit, to correct such foolishness.”

Jyn followed the line of her gesture and saw an old holo flickering on the counter top of a slender young man who strongly resembled her host, laughing as he stood over his mother and hoisted her higher so the holocam could get a better view. The woman laughed as well and smacked her son’s lanky arm, and he lowered her with a quick kiss to the top of her head. Then the holo looped, and the mother and her son silently laughed again, happy and loving.

Jyn looked away.

“Bodhi,” the woman said fondly. “A good boy,” her lips thinned as if in grief, then softened. “A good man. He takes care of his old mother.”

“You shouldn’t,” Jyn started in a sharp voice, then caught herself and tried again, slower and less judgmental. “Names can be dangerous, ma’am,” she said carefully. ( _no names, no questions, no tricks_ ) “The less either of us know, the better for us both.”

The woman turned and regarded her for a long moment, and then said in the same admonishing tone she’d used about the vegetables, “It is just as dangerous to ally with an unknown, for if we do not know our friends, how can we know our enemies?”

There was probably something profound in that, Jyn thought tiredly. Had she not been wrung out from a far more emotional day than she’d had since she was a child, she might have been able to ferret it out, too. As it was, she merely shrugged.

“I am Yashfeen,” the woman continued. “It means healthiness,” she said in a rueful tone, but with a little smile that invited Jyn to join in the joke. “And I will call you Janan,” she added thoughtfully, raising a hand and waving a solemn finger over Jyn’s head as if she were an old-world Queen anointing a Knight Protector before her court in some old Jedi tale.

“What does that mean?” Jyn rubbed briefly at her eyes, so tired now that the world was beginning to go soft around the edges. ( _you’re welcome to stay_ except she couldn’t, she had to keep going, the only other option was death at the hands of regime that killed her mother)

“It means that I believe you are more than the weapons on your belt,” Yashfeen said softly, watching Jyn’s eyes droop. “And that I would like to offer you a more comfortable place to rest, but I am afraid that the futon will have to do.” Jyn glanced aside and saw the rolled up quilted mat against the wall, and managed a vague smile of thanks.

“Looks nice,” she mumbled, then got up and spread it flat on the floor by the wall. “Thanks.”

“Rest well, Janan,” Yashfeen murmured, setting the cover back over the remaining food and leveraging herself up. “I will be in the garage, when you awake.” Meticulously, she unwound her wrap and hung it on the chair, then moved slowly but surely towards the stairs again.

“Can I help you down?” Jyn mumbled, half asleep on the mat but struggling to sit upright again.

“No, my friend,” the woman laughed gently. “A woman must have some pride, after all.”

Jyn nodded, because that made perfect sense, and she settled her back against the wall, tugging her scarf up over her chin to let her breath warm her face.

Yashfeen closed the staircase door gently behind her, and Jyn could hear her careful progress down the creaky stairs. In the corner, a group of Toribota clansmen whistled and chirped, their large metal helmets catching the blue light of the devoted son's holo and throwing off bright reflections that rose into the air and hung in shimmering curtains, a tiny cosmos swirling through the darkness. Jyn brushed her hands through the starfield until one of the little golden kyber lights settled in her hands, and she cupped it close to her face, willing it to stay alight, to keep the darkness back. Terrible things moved in those shadows, human-shaped monsters in black armor with death's heads for helmets, and along the edges of her vision, a man in a white cape strode through the mud. Jyn shivered silently among the kyber stars and clutched her little golden light close to her chest.

"Weakness," Saw growled, "weak to fear the dark. Better to become it, and be feared in turn."

"I'm tired of fear," Jyn told him, watching the crystal glowing in her palms, turning her skin red and gold. "I'm tired of being nameless."

"Then trust in the Force," her mother advised her, stretching her muddy, dead hands over the glittering light as if trying to warm them over a flame. But even kyber couldn't make her alive again, and the light flickered weaker and weaker as Jyn tried desperately to close her fingers around it. Behind her mother, the monk tapped his wooden staff against the floor and the crystal flickered a little brighter for a moment, but Mama pulled a blaster from her pack and ran into the darkness and the crystal dimmed again, then a little more.

"Come back," she whispered, "come back, come back."

"It's too dangerous," her papa sighed. "It's always been too dangerous." The crystal flickered again, almost entirely gone, fading and brightening and fading again, like it was struggling for breath. Papa was walking away, through the thick black curtain the monks hung over the doors, and the statues watched him go. "You have to go, Stardust," he called. "Say you understand."

"I understand," she repeated dutifully, but it was a lie, she was a liar and she didn't understand anything.

The light winked out, and Jyn threw herself forward in a panic, scrambling frantically through the darkness for something, anything, _please don't leave me alone in the dark -_

Hands, warm and unmarked and tight around her fingers. "I know you," an accented voice said in her ear, and she shoved herself under his arm and pressed her face against his chest to anchor herself with his weight. "I know you," he said again, and though she did not look up, she knew that there was starlight in his eyes.

Jyn woke up curled in a tight ball on the futon, one hand clutching her kyber crystal so hard that her knuckles were white, and the other outstretched in front of her, reaching for something that was no longer there.

A horn blared outside the window, some kind of delivery truck expressing displeasure with a blocked road, and Jyn struggled to her feet, swiping at her sleep-crusted eyes and rolling the kinks out of her neck and shoulders. Her thighs protested when she stood up and stretched, and it took her a moment to remember why they were a little sore. In the watery light of mid-morning, last night - the majority of yesterday, really - felt like a hallucination, a pleasant story she'd told herself while strolling around this strange city. In a way, she was almost grateful for the gentle ache in her lower body; it was real, however brief, and sure, he'd probably ruined her for barracks flings forever, but if she was willing to be honest with herself, it wouldn't be much of a difference.

She checked the chrono on the kitchen wall - she had two hours to make it to the pick up point, where her new recruits would be waiting. It was too dangerous for all twelve to meet together, so Command had coordinated them to be in a general location in the city, and Jyn's job was to round them all up, send them to the final rendezvous point, and then pass them over to their handler. Unless one of them turned out to be an Imperial mole (possible), it should be dull as dirt.

The chapati was still sitting covered on the table, though the juice had been refilled. Jyn squinted at it as she chewed, wondering if Yashfeen had come up to refill it while she slept or if Jyn had simply not noticed her doing it last night...well, earlier this morning. Either way was troubling; it meant Jyn was letting her guard down, slipping on her defense. That was the sort of sloppy work that would get her killed, at best, and get a lot of other people killed along with her, at worst. Jyn looked out of the small window of the apartment at the skyline of Jedha City and rolled her kyber pendant between her fingers slowly. She could not see the Temple from here, nor the great wall that ringed the city, but she could see ships rising and sinking from at least two small space ports, and if she pressed close to the window, she could just see the edge of the Dome of Deliverance. Alright, she knew where she was, she knew where she needed to go. Jyn closed her eyes, held the crystal tight, and took one breath, two, and pushed each memory - her mother's back and Saw's disapproval and _I know you -_ all of them, down into the cave, one at a time, and then closed the hatch.

Time to go to work.

She found Yashfeen leaning over an old speeder engine, a 74-Z model that had been stripped down to it's most basic components. The Jedhan woman looked even older and more fragile in daylight, Jyn thought a little sadly, though she quashed the urge to offer to help as her host levered a diffuser from the side of the speeder and dropped it with a clang on the workbench. "These used to have a lot more safety features," Yashfeen said without looking up, swiping at her sweaty forehead with the back of a grease-stained hand. "But the Empire considered it to be unnecessary weight, and stripped it all away. Now they are little better than a repulsor engine and a seat." She glanced back and waved Jyn over, her eyes twinkling with humor. "And the foolish boy who owns this one has made the worst of additions, come, see."

Jyn moved to look but stayed out of arm's reach. She'd been careless enough lately, and it was time to get her act together. The modifications Yashfeen pointed to were clearly visible from a meter away, and Jyn groaned in sympathy. "Whistle booster," she sneered at the hideously annoying and strangely popular device, and Yashfeen raised her hands to the heavens in mock despair. Jyn noted that a section of the exhaust pipe just before the whistle booster hookup was missing. "How'd you end up with it?"

"His neighbors were attempting to sabotage the booster," Yashfeen set her hand against her mouth as if she were trying to shield her lips from anyone watching from the street, and muttered. "He kept driving it through the street at early hours, so they stuffed a rock in the exhaust pipe to block the air flow."

Jyn grimaced. "How big was the explosion?"

Yashfeen lifted a drop cloth, revealing the missing piece of bent and scorched pipe - and the fist sized hole in the side where the metal curled outward like the petals of an ugly flower. "The poor boy thought he had been hit by a bolt of heaven's wrath. Well, serves him right for driving his neighborhood to distraction."

The two women contemplated the broken pipe and the idiocy of adolescent boys for a moment, and then Jyn tucked a loose hair away and checked her truncheons. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she said as formally as she could.

“You are most welcome,” Yashfeen replied graciously, smiling at her and dipping her head, although she did not set down her tools or pause her work. “Should you need another night, I must usually spend some time at the clinic in the evenings, but after sundown I shall return, and you will be welcome then, too.”

“Thanks,” Jyn shifted her weight a little uncertainly. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.” Awkwardly, she tried to mimic Yashfeen’s graceful bow, then strode from the garage and turned to the north. Behind her, she thought she heard a gentle laugh, and something with the cadence of a blessing spoken in a tongue she couldn’t understand, but the noise of the crowded streets drowned it out.

Her recruits were all supposed to be scattered along a specific path in the city, a long, spiraling road known as the Pilgrim’s Way that began at one garden and ended at another. The spiral would loop her almost three times before she reached the center, but it made it difficult for anyone to tell that she was following a specific path – or rather, it made it impossible for anyone to tell her apart from every other pilgrim walking that specific path.

It took Jyn an hour to find the entrance to the Pilgrim’s Way, the Garden of Reflection, which was tucked inside a circular wall with a small white domed gatehouse guarding its entrance. The gatehouse was unremarkable blank stone from the outside, but from the inside, she saw that the crown of the dome had a skylight cut in the shape of a nine-pointed flower, and the soft white sun filtered through the glass to fill the small, unpainted room with calm light. It was possibly the only place in Jedha that was not painted, tiled, or covered in crystals, and Jyn found the tiny space oddly soothing. She wondered if _he_ would have liked –

But she wasn’t going to wonder that, because it didn’t matter.

There was a burly human male in monk’s robes standing by the opposite door in the gatehouse, arms folded and face set in an unimpressed scowl as he surveyed the incoming pilgrims. Another Guardian of the Whills, Jyn figured when she saw his red sash and golden lamp set by his feet. This one had grown his hair a bit longer than seemed typical, though he kept it in a reasonably neat style. He also had a chestplate hidden under his robes, visible only to someone who knew how to look for the distinct edges it left in his clothes. Unintentionally, Jyn met his eyes, and saw him marking her truncheons and her belt knife; his shrewd eyes even focused on her right sleeve, where her switchblade rested. Damnation, she was _good_ at concealing things, had successfully smuggled bombs in her shoes and poisoned needles in her hair and any other manner of hardware through Imperial checkpoints and high-tech scanners since she was a _child_. So how the hells did people keep marking her hidden weapons lately? Was it Jedha City, something in the kriffing water? Or was she seriously just getting that sloppy?

The big Guardian met her eyes, and gave her a very pointed glower. For a moment she expected him to come stomping over and demand she leave, or surrender her weapons, but all he did was raise one heavy finger and point it at his face, and then at hers. Then he folded his arms and stared at her expectantly.

Jyn glared back, tilted her chin in challenge. He was unmoved, though, and as the crowd shuffled her past him, she muttered sullenly, “Not looking for trouble.”

She couldn’t be sure, because the push of the crowd carried her forward to an angle that made it hard to see his face, but she thought that he rolled his eyes. He allowed her to pass without interference however, and Jyn found herself blinking in the unfiltered sunlight a moment later, standing at the beginning of a curving stone path. The wide red- and brown-stone path flowed through a neat, carefully tended garden, and waist-high posts set every dozen paces or so guided pilgrims along the way. Vines and flowers were cultivated to grown artfully around each post, which were all tipped in kyber. Jyn wondered how the monks kept thieves from simply plucking the shiny stones off as they walked by, then remembered the glowering Guardian at the gatehouse, and stories of how a dozen Guardians would travel the length of the galaxy just to find a single stolen stone. Kyber was reasonably valuable, but probably not worth the relentless pursuit of a cadre of fanatical warriors (because whatever else the monks were, Jyn knew trained fighters when she saw them).

She shook the unproductive thoughts away, because her first recruit had just come into view, lingering near the exit of the garden as if he were examining a large gold flower. She recognized the dark, serious face from her briefing dossiers, a human male with a thin mustache and cultivated beard. Jyn strolled casually up and pretended to admire the weeping widow’s tree that draped gracefully over the flower bed, and in a conversational tone said, “Nice day for a walk in the light.”

To his credit, the young human only jumped a little bit, although he stared at her too long to be entirely normal. Jyn glared at him from the corner of her eye until he turned hastily back to the flowers and cleared his throat. “Yes, but I wish I had, um, a bit of music.”

Jyn nodded absently, a stranger making small talk in a public park. “Any specific singer you like?”

“Frey Pryde,” the youth said cautiously, like an offering. Jyn resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Not a recruit for rebel intelligence, then, but the pass code marked him as Stordan Tonc, a garbage collector from Qemia 7 that the recruiter had labeled as “city kid, dedicated, good with small electronics, joined after the Bread Act Riots.” His lover had died in the riot, and the recruiter thought Tonc would make a good Pathfinder, with some training.

“Everybody likes the classics,” Jyn murmured, and then, “If you’re into Pryde, then may I suggest the Grand Amphitheater? There’s a concert this evening you might enjoy.”

He nodded, swallowed again, obviously trying very hard not to look at her. “That sounds nice. But I don’t know where it is. The Amphitheater.”

“Here, I’ll give you the coordinates,” Jyn held out her hand, and he dutifully dropped his comm link in it. Jyn tapped in a set of coordinates that would take him to an older warehouse on the southern edge of the city, where Rebel Intelligence had supposedly rented a cargo bay under the name of several shell companies. The officer picking the recruits up would meet them all there, and then Jyn could get out of this place and go somewhere with fewer memories.

“Thanks, ma’am,” Tonc said politely when she handed the comm back, sounding almost normal for the first time in the conversation. Jyn smiled blandly at him, shrugging, and when he glanced down at the comm for a moment to put it away, she stepped back and slid into the crowd. When Tonc looked up again, she appeared to have vanished. From a few meters away and behind a tall Utapaun, Jyn watched him spin in a bewildered little circle before remembering himself. He wandered slowly through the gardens for a good ten minutes, and Jyn waited to see if he commed anyone or behaved suspiciously. Mostly, he stared blindly at flowers and tapped his pocket where he’d stowed the comm. If he was a mole, he was either terrible at it, or really fucking amazing.

Well, that was the officer’s job to sort out. Jyn mentally compiled her initial report, because she’d been warned her officer would want the NCO’s “impressions” of each recruit, and then moved on, out of the garden and down the spiral path.

The next recruit was a human woman with elegantly-styled blonde hair and a messenger bag, Rodma Maddel, formerly a Core world city planner who had run a political protest group against a sleazy politician. The politician had turned out to be the brother of an Imperial Star Destroyer captain, and Maddel had found herself neck deep in slander lawsuits and holonet-harassment campaigns. Maddel could have simply moved to another planet – her family was well off enough that the Empire would let her go so long as she stayed quiet. Jyn admitted to herself that she didn’t think much of the woman with styled hair and manicured fingernails until she turned and hit Jyn with a fierce scowl and a grim “ _its_ _about time_ ,” and Jyn figured _staying silent_ probably wasn’t in her lexicon. Jyn gave her the coordinates under the guise of meeting up later for drinks, and moved on.

She wound her way leisurely down the spiraling path, stopping to admire the kyber posts that glittered in the sun, waving off vendors with “protective charms” and prayer tablets, and occasionally, stopping for a polite chat with strangers who were not strangers. The Arcona was the best at faking a casual conversation, the two Ishi Tib brothers were the worst (by the time she pulled her vanishing trick on _them,_ she was about ready to punch whichever one elbowed his brother meaningfully next). She made her way down the path, picking up the Shistaven and the Duros almost right next to each other. The Shistaven didn’t seem surprised when Jyn “disappeared,” probably because her kind were nearly blind anyway but had killer senses of smell. (Jyn didn’t bother hanging around to spy on that one. No point.) By contrast, the Duros nearly fell over in shock.

It took Jyn almost an hour to find the snaggletoothed Snivvian, chattering cheerfully with a group of local Jedhans almost off the path entirely, kneeling in the dirt and throwing twelve-sided dice on a mat of painted tiles. It took her another ten minutes to get the idiot’s attention, and she only achieved that by muscling into the game and slandering his skills at it. He bristled at her at first, then seemed to remember what he was about, and she gave him the coordinates by pretending it was for a private game she was setting up for an employer. The other players slapped the Snivvian admiringly for getting an invite to one of the prestigious gambling houses (they thought) and Jyn didn’t have to pull her vanishing trick here either, because the fool was absorbed in the game again the moment the comm link was back in his hand.

She found the Sullestan next, and the Lasat shortly after. The Bothan found _her_ , and Jyn had to repress the urge to belt her in the face with a truncheon when she appeared, quiet and soft-spoken from behind. She was the most courteous of the bunch, calling her “Respected Friend” and bowing when she handed back the comm link. Jyn slid away with a group of Rodian pilgrims, but the rebel sergeant got the distinct impression that her Bothan recruit only pretended not to see her go out of politeness.

The next was a full-figured, round-cheeked lavender Twi’lek, who wore a layered dress of colorfully-embroidered cloths and a decorative rose-pink cape. She actually hugged Jyn like a long-lost sister when the rebel started the code conversation. Jyn froze, wrist flexing to draw the switchblade, but the Twi’lek set her down a moment later and positively beamed as she gave her passcode. Jyn passed the coordinates off as a textile shop where the recruit might find more of “oh, this _lovely_ green perle thread, it’s so hard to find but _so_ worth it, sweetie, I’ll make you a cape!” Jyn slunk away afterwards as fast as she could, and took extra care to stay hidden as she watched the flamboyant recruit for another ten minutes.

Seriously, the woman had _hugged_ her.

This was turning out to be a very strange mission.

The last recruit was all the way at the end of the Pilgrim’s Way, at the center of the spiral in the Garden of True Self. It was another human male, a blue-eyed young man with his sandy brown hair in a tail at the nape of his neck leaning nonchalantly against small multicolored tile fountain. Jyn picked her way to him slowly, stopping to admire the flowers, the mosaics on the little benches set by the path, until finally she made it to the fountain. “Nice day for a walk in the light,” she said to the water.

“Not as nice a day to stand around in the sun,” he responded with a smile, but Jyn could hear the impatience in his tone. _Hey kid, some of us were working_ , she thought with no small irritation of her own. Before she could respond he said in a bored voice, “Wish I had something to drink though.”

Jyn willed herself to stay calm and unaffected, although at this point, she was getting tired of the game, and the afternoon sun was getting uncomfortably warm. “And what drink do you prefer?”

His pass code was _darjeeling tea with moof-milk,_ but before he could answer, Jyn felt all the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She straightened and turned around abruptly, facing back up the path, and the recruit was at least smart enough to sense her distraction and shut his mouth again.

Someone was watching her.

Jyn leaned against the fountain next to the kid (probably not fair to call him that, he was older than her), sweeping the crowd carefully. For a brief moment, she thought (hoped) that maybe it was –

“Shit,” the kid hissed, as four Stormtroopers appeared at the entrance to the garden.

“Be still,” Jyn ordered him in a low voice, because his whole demeanor had gone from indolent tourist to guilty school boy in an instant. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Let them pass.”

The recruit shifted his weight and didn’t acknowledge her. Hugh Sutherland, she flipped through her mental file on him, son of a reasonably wealthy comm-manufacturer. His recruiter had noted that he had few useful skillsets but extensive knowledge on how his mother’s company operated and what kinds of equipment their Imperial customers preferred. Skills could be taught; knowledge like that was valuable.

The ‘troopers marched in a square formation down the path, towards the gatehouse at the end of the Pilgrim’s Way that led back into the streets. As they passed, one of them turned his masked face and looked directly at both of them. Jyn let him look for a moment, then dropped her eyes to the ground as if in submission (really, it was to hide the challenge, because _damn_ it had been too long since she’d put her boot through one of those skull-faces).

The weight of the ‘trooper’s stare was heavy and hard, like a fist wrapped around her throat (nothing like a caress down her back, honestly, what had she even been thinking, _hoping_ like that?)

Then it was over, the ‘troopers marched out of the gate and the pilgrims in the silent garden tentatively began to murmur amongst themselves again. Jyn watched the gate warily for a moment longer, just in case they came back. What were ‘troopers even doing way out here? She supposed some nearby garrison commander had just decided to put on a show of power, to remind the population that the Empire was out there somewhere, technically ruling all of this moon. Or maybe even ‘troopers took vacations, and these were just the kind of assholes who liked freaking out the locals.

No, marching a military unit down a path that was officially not religious (because Force worship was outlawed, everyone knew that) but was obviously still considered sacred by many could only be a power move of some kind.

And frankly, it wasn’t Jyn’s job to figure out who or why. (Just Imperial politics intruding on everyone’s lives whenever they felt like it, the Empire grinding its heel down just to remind you that it could).

“So,” Jyn said absently, still watching the gate, “about that drink.”

“I can’t,” the man gasped, and Jyn snapped her eyes to his pale face. “I can’t,” he said again, not meeting her gaze. “I, I thought I…I just wanted to…I have non-human friends, you know,” he stuttered, suddenly defensive, as if she had accused him of something. “I know things are tough for them. I wanted to help, but I can’t, I mean if those ’troopers thought-” He trailed off, crossing his arms and shaking his head as he scowled at the ground. “I just wanted to…”

 _You wanted to be a hero_ , Jyn thought with a flare of anger in her chest and a hint of bile on her tongue. _You thought you’d run off from Mommy’s mansion and be the rugged action-holo star who makes rousing speeches and leads the shining army over the hill to sweep away the foe, and everyone would build statues in your honor and say what a brave man you were to stand up for the oppressed_. But this war was fought in alleyways and cantinas, by the desperate and the poor against the well-funded and the powerful. It was foot soldiers against tanks, it was patched together X-wings raided from museums against fleets of the newest TIE fighters, it was spies with scraps of intel and charm against the highest security systems in the galaxy. Her other recruits had been shop-owners and construction workers and even a seamstress whose lives had been upended and destroyed by a system that considered them to be second-class citizens at best, slaves at worst. _They came to be foot soldiers, mechanics, spies. You came to be a hero._

_But we don’t need heroes. And you aren’t interested in being a foot soldier, because they tend to die without glory._

Jyn straightened, and gestured towards the gatehouse. “They see you,” she said abruptly, and as the kid snapped up and whirled around, she slipped silently into the crowd.

When he realized he’d been tricked (and dumped), he cast around almost frantically for a moment, then hunched his shoulders and sneered at the fountain. “Forget it,” he said aloud, and stomped away.

Jyn followed him as long as she dared, until the shadows lengthened and her rendezvous time approached. There was a moment, just one, where she considered how dangerous it was to have the son of a wealthy Imperial sympathizer who knew her face…but the boy seemed determined to go home and pretend none of this ever happened, and he was almost all the way to a nearby space port before she peeled away and made for the warehouse.

Her recruits should be there within the hour, and the officer shortly after that. Jyn’s part in this affair was nearly done. Maybe the Alliance would send her to a hot zone next. Somewhere she was less likely to deal with oblivious idiots, or creepy monks who knew too much, or people who wanted to _hug_ her, for fuck’s sake.

 _I’m not someone people hug_ , she told herself firmly, and refused to think of a blue-lit room or a low, accented voice in her ear.

_I am a foot soldier, a thief, a spy. When the Imperials kill me at last, I will die without glory, and without comfort._

_But not alone,_ she thought and in the back of her mind Saw’s righteous snarl joined her own _, because I’ll take a hell of a lot of them with me, when I go._

Everybody had to have _some_ hope, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Biscuit Baron](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Biscuit_Baron) is a no-shit fast food chain not unlike McDonalds, owned by the [family of General Tagge](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/House_of_Tagge) from the original trilogy. I imagine that its arrival is usually the first herald of gentrification in many places...among other things. 
> 
> A [luminous red nova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_red_nova) is basically a kind of stellar explosion that we _think_ is caused by two stars crashing together. In that vein of thought, a [barycenter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycenter) is the mass between two orbiting stars, around which they both orbit. If the barycenter is stable, you are unlikely to get a luminous red nova…probably. Anyway, code words are hard.
> 
> [The symptoms of heart disease](http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/guide/heart-disease-symptoms#1) are as varied as they are awful, and if you have terrible health care, fatal. 
> 
> [Chapati](http://www.whats4eats.com/breads/chapati-recipe) bread (a close cousin of naan, or any unleavened bread) is delicious, btw, and can make for some fun buffet style meals if you have the right fillings. Also, Bodhi’s mum doesn’t adhere strictly to the same rules of Pashtunwali that I mentioned before, but like many mothers I have met, she believes very firmly that you don't eat healthy enough, honey, and you should really get more vegetables in your diet. Have another serving.
> 
> Janan = “heart” or “soul” depending on your choice of interpretation.
> 
> A whistle booster is a goofy made-up Star Wars version of a [whistle tip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_tip), ala Bubb Rub (youtube it if you're curious), but with that little extra Star Wars twist that means it also makes the bike just a little bit faster and much more dangerous. Yashfeen hates them, but she gets a lot of business repairing transports broken by desperate neighbors.
> 
> The white entrance dome to the Pilgrim’s Way is based on the [Lotus Temple](https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&biw=1280&bih=929&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=lotus+temple+skylight&oq=lotus+temple+skylight&gs_l=psy-ab.3...9175.10120.0.10301.9.6.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..9.0.0.-FPsgQyxzZA#imgrc=uOvNIaWfwE0RGM:&spf=1504707368432) in New Dehli, because it’s gorgeous. (Baze likes it too, that’s why he signs up for Gate Duty).
> 
> For the hardcore nerds, the hard-to-find snaggletoothed Snivvian is a reference to this [blink-and-you-miss-it character](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Snaggletooth) in the OT that caused a big controversy because his toy was initially wearing the wrong color jumpsuit or something, and people went a bit nuts trying to get a clear image of him to prove it (remember, this was in the wild pre-internet days of yore, so it’s not like they could just rip the DVD and screencap the bugger).
> 
> The Bothan is a little nod to the extremely competent spy network in [Over the Edge](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11047776/chapters/24628950) by the talented jplus. I really loved the way Bothans are portrayed there, and I figured it makes sense, in the context of ROTJ. (It’s an amazing story all around; if you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend you head that way.)


	6. Officer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Recruits, form up!” Jyn called into the warehouse again, and then stepped smartly around the Lasat to meet her new temporary commander.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, so, have I mentioned lately that I have no chill? I was going to end this story with a nice reunion scene, and then I realized that it felt completely OOC and kinda dumb and anyway it was way too happy for these two. And this is why I can't have nice things.
> 
> So here we go.

The warehouse was only a street down from a small shipping spaceport, an old, rundown square shape among a dozen others just like it. Jyn made a large, lazy circuit around it before she even got close, dropping proximity markers, checking for tails, and noting the handful of barely operating security cameras. The whole area was a barren wasteland of ancient duracrete, rusting metal fences, and ugly, mass-produced prefab buildings. It was the only place in all of Jedha City that felt familiar to Jyn.

She sauntered to the nearest door, tossed out her last proximity marker, and shouldered her way in. Her recruits were waiting inside the warehouse around a protective stack of empty crates marked with the logo of whichever shell company the Alliance used to procure this place. The bronze-furred Shistavanen (Lorga, no clan name, security guard) was the only one to notice her at first, that superior sense of smell could really come in handy…no, wait, the white Bothan (Dana Sekel, librarian) was also very carefully not looking in the shadows where Jyn lurked, and there was no way her sensitive hearing had not picked up on a human’s tread, however light. The towering Lasat (Jak Inkari, bodyguard) picked her up next which was not surprising, but then the Human female did too, and that _was_.

Jyn waited a beat longer out of sight, because once the Human female (Rodma Maddel, city planner) straightened up, all the others seemed to notice that something was happening. They were sprawled around the crates and pallets, mostly keeping to themselves, watching the papered-over windows and each other. All except for the Snivvian, Jyn noted with an exasperated scowl, who seemed to be engrossed in some tap-game on his datapad.

Right. The officer was an hour out, and Jyn was here to give the Last Chance.

She strode out of the shadows like she expected a fight, and snapped “Form up!” in a harsh voice. The Bothan, the Lasat, and the Arcona moved immediately, stepping to the center of the cleared space shoulder to shoulder. The two Humans and the Sullustan were close behind, but it took the rest several seconds to register what was happening, and shuffle into place. The Snivvian didn’t move at all. Jyn glowered at him for a moment, but he was so intent on the beeping, chattering datapad he never noticed. The Human male (Stordan Tonc, garbage collector) snickered a little, and Jyn, moving as few muscles as possible, maneuvered a small piece of rubble onto her toe, and then _kicked_ it, hard.

The small chunk of brick flew through the air, and smacked the oblivious Snivvian directly between the eyes. He let out a little screech and dropped the datapad, clamping his clawed fingers to his wide nose and stumbling back until he tripped and landed on his arse. Tonc snickered again, but Jyn swung her glare over him and he instantly assumed the expression of a man who had no idea where that noise could have come from, because he certainly had not been laughing and in fact had never laughed in his life. Jyn turned back to the Snivvian, arms crossed, eyes blinking as little as possible as she stared him down.

The Snivvian (Am, accountant) looked around and noticed that everyone was standing in two neat(ish) lines, staring at him, and gave a high-pitched chuckle. “Uh, sorry,” he giggled, and scrambled to join the front line.

Jyn gave them another long moment, looking them each over in turn, noting who looked her in the face and who squirmed under her severe eye. “I am Sergeant Hallik,” she said at last and folded her arms. “And this,” she said firmly, calmly, “is your last chance.”

The silence was suddenly profound.

“Some of you are here because you have lost something,” Jyn went on in the same measured tone, and Tonc flinched. “Some of you are here because you were driven here,” the Shistavanen shifted her weight, “and some because you fear what you will lose, if you do not act.” The Bothan was good, she did not twitch a muscle, but Jyn watched the white fur on her nose-ridge ruffle just slightly before settling flat again.

“But all of you are here,” Jyn unfolded her arms and set them behind her back, parade rest, head up and eyes sharp, “because you know, each and every one of you, that something is wrong with the galaxy.” Jyn raised her voice, just a touch, just enough to let her words ring a little around the room, “And all of you know that _something must be done_.” They were staring at her, transfixed, and even the fidgety Ishi Tib brothers were still. 

“And you are here,” Jyn dropped her voice again but made it hard, letting some of her own rage at the Empire, at the way they had forced her to live and the things they had taken from her, leak out in her tone, “because you can no longer stand aside and do nothing at all.”

Jyn looked deliberately at each of them again, and this time none of them shied from her gaze. “But not everyone is made for this life, or this part of the fight. Perhaps you would be better off back in your homes, better off keeping your heads down and being kind when you can,” she chanced a look at the Twi’lek, and saw the plump lilac woman startle at her words. Jyn hid the little flash of triumph – Yvette Sanduni’s profile had not listed her home planet, but Twi’lek from the Tann province on Ryloth had a very powerful cultural stigma towards unkindness, and the woman’s reaction probably meant she was from there. “Perhaps you are better off resisting in your own small ways,” Jyn went on. “You have come a long way to join this fight, and you’ve had many chances to turn back, to go home, to be peaceful and quiet and maybe even happy.”

Maddel snorted. Jyn ignored her.

“But this,” she said again, “is your last chance.”

There was a long, quiet pause, and then Sanduni wrung her purple hands together and burst out, “I was going to be sold!”

Jyn raised an eyebrow, because that had _not_ been in her mental script.

“My sisters were taken to the markets when they were young,” the Twi’lek burbled, and to Jyn’s mild horror, great tears began to swell in her eyes. “But I wasn’t _delicate_ enough,” she made a sudden sharp gesture to her rounded body, “so the _sha’avagi_ didn’t take me, but then the Senate changed the laws so it didn’t cost so much to own indentured personal attendants, and someone thought I’d fetch a good price anyway.” The Twilek was nearly wailing now, and Jyn stared at her, face impassive, but at a total loss inside. “I can’t go back,” she sobbed. “I won’t.”

Lorga the Shistavanen suddenly leaned over and threw a hairy arm around the Twi’lek’s shoulders. “My clan threw me out,” she grated. “Because I didn’t want to clear out of our neighborhood when the Imps came to build a new fortress on it. They said I endangered the clan with my recklessness, because I wouldn’t roll over and show my throat.” She snarled, sharp fangs on display and the hint of blood red gums, “so I’m not going back either.”

“I’m staying,” Tonc said in a careful, thoughtful voice. “You’re right, ma’am. Something must be done.”

“In it to win it,” the Snivvian chimed in cheerfully.

The others nodded, shuffled their feet, grunted agreement. The Ishi Tib brothers slapped their right hands together and grinned.

Jyn waited for the general hubbub to die down, and then shrugged. “Then welcome to the resistance,” she said quietly, with a small smile.

A small flashing light went off on her wrist, and she snapped to attention at once. “Possible perimeter breach,” she told them sharply. “Inkari, Lorga, defensive positions,” she pointed at the door closest to the triggered alarm. Immediately, the Shistavanen and the Lasat hunkered down on either side of the door, fangs out, large hands flexed into fists.

“Tonc, Maddel, Sanduni, Yalthikera,” she pointed at the Humans, the Twi’lek, and the Ishi Tib, “back behind those crates, heads down. You are authorized to use those blasters,” she told the Ishi Tib, “but if you shoot me in the back, I will haunt you both through all twenty hells of your ancestors.” The Ishi Tib (Xilar and Xilren, soldiers in their local militia, thrown out for insubordination) grinned again and saluted her with their blasters.

“Sekel, Aklee,” the Bothan did not seem startled that Jyn knew her name, but one of the Arcona’s slender hands flew up to their throat in shock. “Go high, stay silent, observe,” Jyn ordered as she pointed at the catwalk around the upper level of the warehouse, and the Bothan was gone almost before she’d finished speaking. “Use that blow dart in your pocket if necessary,” Jyn told the Arcona, who clapped their hands together in understanding and faded back much less elegantly than the Bothan.

“Am, Te’lo, Katamaras,” the Snivvian, Duros, and Sullustan all stepped forward, the Duros looking jittery, the other two eager, “over here, hunker behind that crate stack, look for improvised weapons.”

“Is it Imperials?” Te’lo squeaked in a nervous voice, his/her large green head bobbing in fear.

“Just listen to the sarge,” Tonc muttered, already moving back towards his assigned position.

Jyn didn’t stop to make sure her recruits were in position. She jogged briskly to a small stack of crates closer to the door, pulling her blaster free and aiming at the door. If this was an attack, they were probably all dead anyway – well, _she_ might make it out, and the Lasat, the Shistavanen, and the Bothan all had pretty decent chances. The rest…

But she had a feeling this wasn’t an attack.

The door opened, although no one stood framed inside. Lorga’s teeth looked even bigger in the dim twilight, and she seemed ready to tear out the throat of anyone who came through.

“And he is dead,” called a low, male voice through the door, “who will not fight.”

Both her door guards jumped, and Inkari looked over at Jyn with confusion wrinkling his wide purplish brow. But Jyn felt the tension fading from her back already, and in a loud clear voice, she called back, “And he who dies fighting has increase.” A shadow filled the doorway, but Jyn was already tucking her blaster back in place and gesturing for the Shistavanen and the Lasat to step away from the door and stand near her. The last thing she needed was her new recruits getting mixed up and jumping a superior officer.

Lorga came slowly, her teeth still bared slightly, but Inkari rose from his crouch and lumbered to her easily enough. Both of the recruits were over two meters tall, and bulky with muscle and fur, so they blocked Jyn’s sight line on the officer for a moment until they reached her. “Recruits, form up!” Jyn called into the warehouse again, and then stepped smartly around the Lasat to meet her new temporary commander.

He had almost crossed the space already, close on Lorga’s heels, but the moment he met her eyes, he went still.

Jyn’s stomach turned to ice.

Lorga paused at her side, nose twitching. “Sergeant?”

“Sergeant Liana Hallik,” the officer said softly in a lilting accent. His face was carefully blank, his words too quiet to pick out much inflection, but his dark eyes were intent on Jyn’s face. She could almost feel the pressure of his gaze, the faint sensation of warm hands caressing her back. It made her skin feel hot and prickly, made her head swim with some terrible combination of longing and rage. He knew – he’d _known_ –

Abruptly, the ( _stranger, companion, friend, I know you_ ) officer seemed to shake himself, and his eyes went cold and blank, just as they had in the alley, when the thugs had tried to jump them.

He turned and peered over her head, as if he were much more interested in the recruits, in the operation, and not at all invested in the sergeant before him. As if she were just another soldier, a mission asset, nothing more.

Jyn swallowed, made her face as neutral as she could and her voice emotionless. “Captain Joreth Sward,” she greeted him by the name she’d been given at the brief – it was probably not his real name any more than Hallik was her own. ( _no real names, they’d promised, and she’d held to her end of the bargain but he…)_ She was just a sergeant; captains had much higher clearance. Captains would know their contact’s real names.

She stared at his right shoulder and reported in as cold a tone as she could muster, “Recruits are all presented or accounted for. Eleven pick ups confirmed.”

“Very well, Sergeant,” he replied dispassionately, and Jyn wanted to pull her knife all over again, put it right to his lying throat, right over the… _fuck_ , the bruise just edging out of his collar, the mark _she’d_ put there last night. He stared over her head with empty eyes, watching the recruits shuffling back into some semblance of a formation behind her, and then frowned as he counted them out. “Eleven? Forgive me, Sergeant, but I count twelve.”

Jyn grit her teeth, because though his tone was carefully impartial, she felt raw and exposed and wrong-footed, and his words smacked of judgment. The kriffing bastard had _played_ her, and now he dared critique her work, and… _shit_ , it hurt.

It hurt.

And she couldn’t even punch him, not with the recruits watching, not with twelve other lives on the line. If the recruits saw their new leadership get into a fistfight, they might waver, might run off, and now that they’d seen the officer, knew Jyn’s rank, and knew the meeting point, they were a threat to the mission safety. She couldn’t punch him. She’d have to settle for chilly professionalism and a vague revenge fantasy that she could never follow up on.

“The Ishi Tib were counted as one dossier, sir,” she growled, fighting for self-control. “The last pickup was Sutherland.”

He scanned the sloppy rows the recruits had arranged themselves in, and then his eyebrows lifted slightly as he recognized the Human male’s absence. For the first time since he’d arrived, he turned to meet her eyes again, his question clear. “’Troopers,” she said shortly. “Walked by, no interaction, but he got cold feet and went home.”

His jaw tightened. “Had you made contact?”

She nodded. “No pass code, we were interrupted. But he saw me.”

Sward – or whoever the fuck he really was – furrowed his brow at her in mild astonishment, and dropped his voice too low for the recruits to hear (except the Bothan, probably). “And you let him go?”

Jyn narrowed her eyes and reminded herself that they were in a dangerous position and _she could not punch him_. “Yes, sir.”

They locked eyes, and she realized a moment late that one or both of them had drifted closer, very close, _fuck me sideways with a thrice-damned broom, he’s too close,_ because she had to tilt her head back to look at him and his eyes flickered to her lips, just once. “Did you see where he went after your meeting?” the officer asked, still in that quiet voice, and Jyn let the irritation flare up and drive her a step back, away from him.

“Of course, _sir_ ,” she bit out. “I know how to do my job,” she snarled as quietly as she could, and then to cover it, she added in her most professional tone, “Subject returned to the northwest spaceport immediately following contact. Subject made no contact with comm link or individual personnel during transit. Subject appeared uninterested in further contact.” In a slightly more human voice, she added with some derision, “He was harmless. Stupid rich kid who wanted to play toy soldiers.”

“As you say, Sergeant,” he said in a brisk business-like tone after a moment. “However, I must adhere to protocol.”

Jyn scowled, but technically she knew he was correct. There were protocols in place for the recruits changing their minds. If one of them chose to leave when Jyn gave the Last Chance, or even before as Sutherland had done, then the previous plan for getting off Jedha was now scrapped. The officer – Sward – _whoever_ – was in charge of reshuffling their shuttles and probably causing them all to be stuck here for…longer.

But Jyn was the only one in the warehouse who knew that. “What’s that mean?” Am the Snivvian game-lover called out in his high-pitched voice behind her, sounding uncertain and a little concerned. “What’s happening?”

Jyn pivoted sharply to look back at them, and Sward stepped up beside her immediately, almost shoulder to shoulder. She clenched her fists – _do not punch the officer, do not endanger the mission_. “It means,” he said in the same voice he’d used on the Decraniated, pleasant and unmemorable. “That we will be doing some target-of-opportunity evaluations before we leave Jedha City.”

“What sort of evaluations?” One of the Ishi Tib brothers asked suspiciously while the other peered at Sward with his hand on his blaster holster.

“Basic skill sets, knowledge checks, that sort of thing,” Sward held up a hand, a friendly, encouraging (completely fake) smile on his face. Jyn wanted to smack it off him (wanted to see that soft, warm, _real_ half-smile curl in its place – wait, _shit_ , no, she didn’t) but the recruits all seemed to relax at the sight. The nervous Duros even stopped wringing his/her hands and bowed in his/her people’s traditional gesture of agreement. The officer nodded his head in appreciation and said politely, “I believe that I would like you to start us off.” He tilted his head at the Duros. “And may I ask your name, recruit, and what assignment you are currently using, please?”

“Ah, I am Rafine Te’lo,” the Duros replied. “And I am currently in my female phase, sir.”

The captain smiled the fake smile again and turned back to Jyn. “Sergeant, I must make arrangements for transport,” he said genially. “I am thinking,” he raised a thoughtful eyebrow, “groups of four?”

“I’ll sort it, sir,” she grunted, staring into the distance, her feet planted, her hands behind her back, her spine stiff as durasteel. It was probably the most correct parade-rest stance she’d ever bothered to hold, and also the most uncomfortable, but it allowed her to avoid his face and was just about as impersonal as it was possible to be.

“Thank you,” he replied in that careful tone again, and that stupid smile faded away the moment his back was to the recruits. He strode past her, reaching for a comm link and speaking quietly into it. He passed so close to her that a tiny breeze stirred her hair, and she thought for a moment that she could smell rooibos tea, like the kind she’d gotten for them both in the market.

When she’d been calling him a “companion” in her head and he’d probably been calling her an idiot in his.

Jyn took a deep breath, then snapped to the recruits.

“Tonc, Yalthikera, yes, both of you, and Te’lo, you are in Group One,” she ordered curtly. “Stand over there. Sekel, Am, Aklee, Katamaras, you’re Group Two. Over here. Maddel, Sanduni, Lorga, Inkari, Group 3. There.” The three groups split as ordered, and the Snivvian immediately pulled out his datapad, tapping Tonc on the arm and asking if he wanted to “double” on his game. The Human shook his head, glancing sidelong at Jyn, but she ignored them both.

A moment later, Sward returned, swept an assessing glance over the groups, and nodded in absent approval at Jyn. It rankled – but then, of course he would think her incompetent. She had danced right into his little game, hadn’t she? Total stranger comes up to her, gives her a couple half-hearted compliments, asks her to follow him around unknown territory, and off she trots, cheerful as a bunny and twice as stupid.  “Group One,” she pointed for him, determined to at least pretend like they were professionals meeting for the first time. “Group Two, and Group Three over there.”

“Group One will evac in three hours,” he said, turning to face the Duros. “The shuttle will take you to a waystation, where instructors will give you whatever basic training I recommend and then send you where you will be of the most use in the fight.”

“What about the rest of us?” Maddel folded her arms and glowered at him, and he gave her a pleasant, reassuring smile. Jyn wanted to scream. She settled for falling back into parade-rest and letting her eyes stare into the distance again.

“The next shuttle will come either tomorrow or the following night, depending on my judgment,” Sward explained to the recruits. “Group Two will board that shuttle with Sergeant Hallik, and then Group Three will evac at my discretion, under my command.”

So she only had to make it one or two more days. Well, that could be worse. Good thing Yashfeen had offered her a place to stay again. Her mission funds were extremely limited (unlike the officer, apparently, because he’d been able to afford a nice inn, but she was not thinking about that, _not thinking about it_ ), and she didn’t really feel like pickpocketing her way through a religious city. She wasn’t pious, didn’t believe in the Force or any gods, not since Mama died. But somehow the idea of robbing pilgrims who might have been someone like her mother, might have felt the way she did, before Imperials put a blaster bolt through her heart… well, she’d rather stick with the nice lady in the old machine shop.

“So,” the officer was saying, and Jyn shrugged off thoughts of her past tragedies and focused on her current one. “Group One, you and I will take a moment to run through a few questions, and Group Two, Sergeant Hallik will take you out into the warehouse district and give you a basic urban terrain course.” He glanced aside at her as he spoke, and Jyn nodded stiffly in reluctant agreement. He meant to test the first group on mental acuity, observation, data analysis, and she was to run the second through recon and evasion drills. She’d grouped them for that exact reason; the Duros was far too jumpy for combat, the Ishi Tib too willing to throw themselves into a firefight, and the Human male too completely inexperienced to be safe even in the confines of the run-down, backwater warehouse district. By contrast, the Sullustan had experience with urban layouts, the Bothan and Arcona were already skilled at moving quietly, and the Snivvian had hyper-focus, which would be extremely useful in recon if she could steer his attention in the right direction.

“What about us?” The Twi’lek ventured cautiously, her eyes still a little too pink from tears. “Um, sir,” she added belatedly.

Sward’s eyes lingered for a moment on her face, and his false reassuring smile took on a slight warmth to it that made Jyn’s lips tighten. “Rest, Ms Sanduni,” he said kindly. “You will be here the longest, so there is no rush to evaluate you. Perhaps you could help your teammate?” he gestured to the Shistavanen, who bristled slightly and looked down, following the path of his finger.

“Oh, oh no, a hole in your shirt!” Sanduni gasped a touch theatrically. “Yes, of course, I can fix that, just, just a moment, here,” she threw her colorful cape back over one shoulder and started to rummage earnestly in her multiple skirt pockets. “I have some lovely blue hard-line thread, it will really brighten that grey…”

“I don’t need bright,” Lorga hunched her broad shoulders and bristled a little more. “And it’s just a little tear.”

“But it will get bigger unless it’s patched, and I can sew it into a little moon, that would just be lovely-”

Jyn tuned them out and shot Sward a covert glance. He was watching the fussing Twi’lek and the uncomfortable Shistavanen with that lingering warmth, but the moment her eyes landed on him, he shook himself and turned to look back at her, bland and empty and strange.

 _The stranger all over again_ , she remembered, except even then he’d looked ten times more awake, or at least more _alive_ than now. Then, he’d looked like someone she might want to know.

He was probably in Intelligence. Someone with his acting skills would have to be a spook. She was probably a fun practice for him, just to see how long he could pretend to be her friend, how long he could keep her from finding out who he was.

Her eyes stung. Oh _hells_ no. She tightened her jaw, bit savagely down on the inside of her cheek, and turned to face Group Two. “Am, you’re on point with me. Five meter radius from me at all times. Sekel, right flank. Aklee, left flank. Kataramas, rear guard, fifteen meter leash. Understood?”

Sekel bowed, Aklee clapped in acknowledgement, and Kataramas nodded. “ _What is it that I seek_?” he asked in his burbling native tongue.

“I dropped ten proximity detectors around this warehouse on my way in,” Jyn told them. “You’re going to find them.”

“Ooh, like a collectibles side-quest!” Am the Snivvian exclaimed. “Bonus points for time, right? What do they look like?” Jyn frowned, not entirely sure she understood what he was talking about, but she pulled another proximity marker from her jacket and held it up. It was roughly the size of her thumbnail, flat, matte black, with a small extendable antenna poking out of the edge. “Wow, tiny. Talk about your hard mode,” Am muttered. 

“Move out,” Jyn ordered, stowing the disk and leading the way to the door. Behind her, Sward was leaning against a stack of crates and chatting with Te’lo, whose green hands flew about emphatically. He looked attentive, absorbed in what the recruit was saying, but she could tell from the tense way he held himself and the way his eyes flicked around the warehouse every few seconds that he was focused on much more than just the excitable Duros. For just a moment, his eyes caught hers again, and _I know you_ whispered in her ears. Then she exhaled, and went out the door.

Her team of recruits were…well, not _highly_ skilled, though none of them were complete duds. The Bothan brought her three proximity markers in the first ten minutes, but then seemed at a loss when Jyn asked where her teammates had been while she hunted, and had to stop and look around for a few minutes to mark them. The Arcona was good at melting through the landscape but couldn’t find a single proximity marker, even when they nearly stood on top of one. The Sullustan (a construction worker in his former life) found a marker relatively quickly, and had great recall when Jyn made him describe everything he’d seen in the last twenty minutes, but he walked through the terrain like he was mapping it for demolition and couldn’t have been more obvious about his search patterns if he tried.

Surprisingly (or not, Jyn thought with vague amusement) the Snivvian found six proximity markers, and managed not to look entirely like a child on holiday while doing it. Hyper-focus indeed, except when she asked him where he would have placed those markers himself if this were his meeting…he’d stared at her for a long moment and then given that high pitched laugh again. “I’ve never tried level design.”

By the end of an hour, Jyn knew that Sekel would be an excellent spy but a terrible team player, Aklee was diplomatic and observant around people but practically blind to anything happening in the world around them, and Kataramas would be an excellent recon specialist as soon as he learned to blend in a little.

She had no idea what to do with Am.

“Data analysis,” Sward murmured when she reported her observations to him. “Some training at code breaking, and he would be a terror among the data crunchers.”

“Just tell him it’s a quest,” Jyn agreed dryly, because he was giving her that half-smile that made her chest tight and for one moment she’d forgotten what a joke she was to him. She flattened her own lips and looked away. The recruits were mingling together again, sitting in a quiet circle as Sanduni passed around ration bars that the officer had provided.

“The Duros will make a good pilot,” Sward told her, and she heard his voice revert to that careful tone, as if he were feeling his way through the conversation. “The Ishi Tib will make good sappers, I think.”

“They know about bombs?”

“Well, some. Mostly they are good at finding weak points and digging in,” he shrugged. “They claim it is a by-product of a lifetime of squabbles with each other.”

He smiled at her again, _damn him_ , but Jyn narrowed her eyes and refused to rise to it. “Hm.”

Across the warehouse, Sanduni lifted a large grey shirt with a flourish, a small blue moon pattern stitched onto the front, and Jyn noted belatedly that Lorga's lightly-furred chest was bare under her faded jacket. “There!” The Twi’lek beamed like a small sun. “Strong as durasteel, and much prettier. It’s such a nice color on you, too!”

“Thanks,” the Shistavanen said in a low growl, and Jyn didn’t have a lot of experience with her species, but if she had to guess, the way her bronze fur stood up along the ridge of her neck probably signaled embarrassment.

“So,” the officer said suddenly under the noise of the recruits. “Did I pass?”

Jyn frowned and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “What?”

Now he seemed to be staring at nothing, eyes blank and voice almost devoid of any inflection. “I assumed the recruiting pick up was meant to be some sort of…rest,” he said distantly, more to himself than Jyn. “I suppose I should have guessed that Command would have additional concerns.”

Jyn was openly staring at him now, and hastily she tried to force her face back under control. What was this, another game? Was he going for riddles now? She opened her mouth to tell him that she had no idea what he meant and she was no longer interested in his games, but what came out was just a bitter, “You’re kriffing hilarious, _sir_.”

He blinked, and for a moment he looked confused and almost painfully young, but then a soft beeping from his pocket snapped both of them to attention, and the officer pulled out a comm link and tapped in a code. He turned his shoulder to hide it from her too – so he’d noticed the way she’d memorized his room code. Not that it mattered, like she had any intention of retaining any memories of last night, at all. No, she would be locking those up deep in her mental cave, and never pulling them up again.

That was the worst part.

“The first shuttle is here,” he told her. “Dock 82G, south port.”

Jyn strode to the recruits. “Group One, you’re moving out.”

“Take point, sergeant,” the officer ordered calmly, as if they hadn’t just had the strangest conversation a moment ago, “Yalthikera brothers, you walk together but stay 5 meters back from Sergeant Hallik. Follow wherever she goes. Tonc, keep the Ishi Tib in your sights, don’t worry about the sergeant. Te’lo, with me, please. The rest of you, stay quiet and hold your positions, we will return within the hour.”

The recruits arranged themselves dutifully according to his commands – and Jyn had to admit, he was good with recruits, good with people in general it seemed, definitely a spook – and they were out the door and moving casually through the streets of Jedha once again.

The evening crowds weren’t as bad down here in the shipping and transportation district, so Jyn didn’t have to push too hard to clear an obvious path through the traffic. Still, she checked back often, making sure the Ishi Tib were still in sight. Further back, she could easily pick out a nervous Tonc and even occasionally the fluttering Duros. She never once saw the officer, though. But then, she already knew how good he could be at following unseen.

Yeah, she really needed to know how he’d done that (why he’d done that, _why, what had been the point, was he really that cruel, had she really misread him that badly?_ )

An old U-wing was already docked at 82G when she arrived at the gate to the tiny port. Jyn swung to the side instead of passing through the security check, and casually propped herself against the chain fence a few meters from the entrance. She crossed her arms and tried to look like a bored local, hanging about waiting for a public transport or a friend. The Ishi Tib brothers paused when they came to the gate, both of them turning to check with her (she sort of wanted to throw another rock at them, because honestly they were terrible at this), but she jerked her head slightly and they were at least smart enough not to walk over and talk to her. They passed the gate and she watched through the fence as they made their way to the U-wing. Tonc came into view a few minutes later and managed to get through security with only a brief glance at her for reassurance. To her surprise, the Duros arrived alone, never looked at Jyn, and barely shook at all as she passed through the light security and made for the U-wing.

“She found her courage,” the officer materialized at Jyn’s side, and it took all of her skill and experience not to jump up and slug him in shock. “She just needed some assurance.”

“Guess you’re pretty good with recruits,” she grit out instead of hitting him, because she still had at least one more day of working with the man, and she had to pretend that was fine.

“Was that the concern?” he mused, turning to lean against the fence with her. Behind them, the sound of a U-wing engine whined to life. “That I would be too broken to deal with people any more?”

“I don’t know what the _hells_ you’re on about, _sir_ ,” Jyn hissed through her clenched teeth, just about at the end of her tether. “But I’m done with your fucking jokes, thanks.” She pushed off from the fence and shouldered her way through the growing evening crowds. The sun was nearly down and the chill was picking up again, and she still had only her light jacket – and no one to wrap a warm arm around her and pull her in to his side.

Not that she wanted that. Ever again. Jyn might have been colossally stupid once, but she was certainly capable of learning her lesson.

“Hallik,” she heard him call out of the corner of her ear, and then when she didn’t stop, “Liana!”

She felt his hand reaching out a moment before he touched her shoulder, and she whirled around despite the crush of the crowd. A pilgrim in a long grey robe shoved into her, and she staggered nearly into a group of Ithorians, who hissed and pushed at her with cold hands. Overbalanced, tired, and furious, she threw an elbow that landed hard in the tallest Ithorian’s chest, knocking the slender humanoid down and sending the rest of them into a shrieking, spitting frenzy of curses and recriminations.

Jyn’s heart was pounding, her blood running hot in her veins, and she wanted to _hit_ something so badly it felt like a physical ache. The Ithorians crowded around her, and her hands curled tight around the truncheons, because _finally_ , a fight.

“No, no, sorry, we’re tourists, sorry,” a loud, polite voice said just behind her, his accent even thicker and harder to understand than before. The officer wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to the side, and she was two seconds from slamming a fist back and into his groin in retaliation when he hooked her ankle with his and tugged, just enough to unbalance her again. Somehow he managed to direct her near-fall to the side, away from the Ithorians and around the corner to a narrow side street. There was no alley here, but the street was nearly empty and a wide fire escape obstructed part of the walkway. He shoved her hard towards it, but she recovered her balance at last and turned to face him, truncheons out and teeth bared in a snarl. He stopped short, staring at her, his sweet and inoffensive tourist smile dropping away like a stone.

“Touch me again,” she spit at him, “and I’ll smash your damn face in.”

“Tell me, Liana Hallik,” he replied in a frozen voice, “what was your job here?”

She glared at him, and her fingers were so tight on her truncheons that she could feel them going a little numb. She ought to tell him to fuck off, ought to smash her truncheon into his gut, ought to turn and run. Instead, she fixed him with her best aggressive stare and said, “Babysitting duty. _Sir_.”

He flinched at the title, and she knew it was dangerous to do it, dangerous to give even the slightest indication that they were more than random civilians to anyone who might be watching, but this was like some kind of nightmare anyway and Jyn was rapidly moving past the point of good sense. “Did they tell you how far to push it?” He demanded in a low, furious voice, and if it had been cold before it was glacial now. He stepped closer, well within range of her weapons now and looming over her, the blank look in his eyes replaced with something hard and unforgiving. “Did you think sleeping with me would give you the best profile for your report?”

“ _What are you talking about, you pus-riddled vomit stain?”_

“You followed me here,” he snarled, and he was so close now that she could feel his breath on her face. It made her want to grab him, maybe slam her head up and into his nose, or her knee into his guts. She had to force herself to clip her truncheons back to her belt before she beat the hells out of him in full view of the public.

And then his words registered over the pounding of her blood, and Jyn gaped at him. “ _I_ followed _you_?” Her voice was just above a furious whisper, quiet but sharp as knives. “Have you _lost_ your kriffing _mind_?”

“Your accent gave you away,” he went on in that deadly cold voice, ignoring her interruption. “I just spent six months in the bowels of Coruscant’s slums, and you thought I wouldn’t be able to pick out a Core world accent like yours even in a crowd of pilgrims? You should have done your homework better, Hallik. Or Command should have sent a better actor.”

Jyn punched him.

She pulled it a little, and aimed high enough on his chest that he wouldn’t rupture an internal organ or anything. Still, it knocked him back and dropped him wheezing to his knees as all the air went rushing from his chest. Jyn swept a quick look around the street, but only a few locals seemed to be passing by, and they all kept their heads firmly down. This was a rougher part of the city, away from the tourist traps and the religious epicenters. No one would want to get involved in some scuffle between humans.

She stepped up to him and dug her fingers into the nape of his neck (not like before, nothing like before) and yanked his head back to look at her, leaning down so she could get right in his face. “Tell me, _sir_ ,” she growled at him. “Did you win your little game? Was getting me to trust you the prize, or was there something else you were after?”

His eyes went wide, and he drew in a shaky breath. She could feel him getting his balance back and if he decided to lunge up at her, he was strong enough to knock her back (he’d lifted her so easily last night). So she let go of his hair and stepped away, and reached to draw her – _fuck_ , she didn’t have her katar anymore, did she? That was fine, she still had the switchblade, and the distinct click of her blade didn’t even seem to faze him. “Game,” he repeated, slightly hoarse, his eyes locked on hers. “My little game.”

And then he did shove himself back to his feet, slapping at the red Jedha dirt on his knees and shooting a covert look around the street himself. “I think,” he said slowly, ignoring the knife in her hand as easily as he had the first time they met. “Perhaps there has been a…misunderstanding.”

She stayed silent, tight lipped and still trembling from adrenaline and rage and the tiniest bit of grief. The light was failing fast, and colorful lanterns began to flicker in the windows of the buildings around them. The shadows made his face almost impossible to read, but Jyn was grateful that they were probably granting her some small measure of concealment, too. This was all just…too much. Yesterday had been some kind of dream, a day in a life that wasn’t hers, and now she couldn’t even remember it fondly because it had all been some kind of-

“You said no tricks,” she said dully, as the adrenaline faded and left her shaky and exhausted. Her voice dropped nearly to a whisper. “Liar.”

She saw it hit him like another blow, his head jerked and he rocked back on his heels slightly. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, and Jyn told herself to walk away. Just walk, back to the warehouse and the other recruits, back to missions and barracks and the endless grind of war, back to her life.

She didn’t move.

Finally, he seemed to collect himself, and though he moved cautiously with his muscles tensed for another blow ( _that little love tap got your attention, right?_ she thought with a small internal smirk), he stepped closer to her again. “Liana,” he said quietly, and Jyn felt those sparks flaring in her belly again, although this time she couldn’t tell if they were desire or irritation or maybe both.

“Not my name,” she muttered defiantly, watching his face. “And you know it.”

“Of course,” he replied lightly. “And mine isn’t Joreth.”

“Difference is,” Jyn told him, feeling the weight of the last two days, of the last two decades, dragging down on her shoulders and her neck. She fixed her eyes on his jacket collar. “You know my real name.”

He laughed. He _laughed_ , the rat bastard, that low chuckle that sent her mind straight back to his bed, the ghost of his mouth and his voice between her legs, and Jyn was seriously considering planting her fist in his guts again when he shook his head. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you’re a - ” she caught herself before she said _officer_ because that would be a truly stupid thing to say out loud in public, and stared hard at his collar (and not, _not_ the mark on his throat, her mouth on his skin in the blue light of the little lamp), “Why wouldn’t you? You rate that information.”

“Not over the holonet,” his voice so quiet now she should have had to strain to hear it over the distant roar of night traffic (except he was too close again, and she could hear every syllable perfectly). “That’s how I got this…job,” he seemed to catch himself too, and Jyn realized that they were both off balance, dancing around code words and dangerous truths. “I was…in transit, and I got a name and a set of coordinates. No pictures,” he added, and Jyn finally raised her eyes from his throat to his eyes. “I heard your voice, and I thought you had followed me from - ” he closed his eyes. “ _Game_ ,” he repeated again, so softly. “You thought that I…”

“Knew me,” Jyn finished. He kept his eyes closed, his hands were fisted at his sides, and a cold breeze cut through Jyn’s jacket like a knife. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself, and then thought, _fuck it_. At this point, what was there to lose?

She leaned forward, closing the gap between them, and set her forehead against his collarbone. She kept her arms tight around her own torso, hunched slightly into herself like she might crack if she let go. She didn’t close her eyes, but she was too close to focus them, so she just stared blindly at his jacket and waited to see how badly this would hurt.

With a sigh she felt reverberate through her whole body, he slid his arms around her shoulders and held her lightly against his chest, one warm hand slipping softly up her back and down again. “No,” he said at last. “But it felt like I did.”

They stood there for a long time, until the colored lamps lit up the night around them and the wind grew too cold and sharp to bear. Jyn pulled away, and he let go without protest. “We need to get back,” Jyn said unnecessarily, just to break the silence.

“I planned to stay there tonight,” he told her. “But we shouldn’t…” he rolled his shoulders as if resettling a load. “It would be dangerous for us both to stay there, in the event that things go, ah, poorly.”

Jyn nodded. “I have a place.”

“Then go there, and I will head back.”

“Alright. I’ll report at dawn tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

His lips twitched, and humor crinkled the corners of his eyes. Jyn commanded herself not to stare at his mouth and gave him a small, cautious smile of her own. Maybe it had honestly just been a strange coincidence, maybe he hadn’t been just screwing her over, maybe, maybe…

“Tomorrow, then,” he murmured, and Jyn stepped away.

The wind was icy through her clothes, all the harsher for the memory of warmth around her shoulders. Jyn bent her head and locked her arms around her torso and told herself that she wasn’t going to think about it anymore tonight.

Tomorrow, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I messed up: I said there were 12 recruits, and then had one of them abandon the rebellion to go home, but then when I went back to count up the remaining that I’d mentioned…I forgot that I made the Ishi Tib recruit 2 people (the brothers) – so I still had 12. So I just reworked it to “pick ups” instead of individual recruits, and we’re going to pretend that the brothers come as a package deal, so there are only 11 pick ups. Problem solved. (I know there are too many OCs, that's okay, most of them will pass right through this story, don't work too hard to remember them all.)
> 
> So I went a bit wild inventing various cultural things for all my recruits, but the Twi’lek’s was unfortunately based on canon. In universe, [Twi’lek women are often sold as slaves](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Twi%27lek) because they are considered beautiful and graceful by most species. I invented the “sha’avagi” as the word for a type of merchant/slaver group in the Outer Rim, who determine the “value” of each young woman once she reaches puberty (usually by buying her public records from corrupt officials), and if her value is high enough, she’s pretty much slaver meat. People can and do fight back, of course, but the sha’avagi tend to target the poorer districts, and they are very wealthy and powerful from such a successful slave business. So anyway, that’s how I’m explaining the abundance of Twi’lek slave girls in Star Wars/fandom.
> 
> “And he is dead who will not fight / and he who dies fighting has increase.” = lines from a World War I poem [Into Battle](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47261/into-battle). Not a great poem for Jyn and Cassian as individuals, but went well with the theme of a small, struggling resistance trying to keep up the Good Fighting Spirit.
> 
> I promise I will explain Cassian's comments about being profiled and spending six months in Coruscant slums. His anger will all make sense, eventually.


	7. Sniper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Impressive,” he murmured, only a few centimeters from her face, and Jyn was _not_ thinking about the last time they had been in a position like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters getting ridiculously long. This one got so bad that I'm thoroughly sick of it and am posting it unbeta'd. Apologies for any terrible mistakes. (I swear this was originally going to be a fluffy one shot. It really was.)

 

At first, Jyn thought she had made a wrong turn. It wouldn’t have been so surprising, because her thoughts had been muddled and confused as she walked through the cold Jedhan streets. She slowed and double-checked her surroundings, but no, there was the Biscuit Baron at the end of the street, there was the new high-end club that looked so out of place among the ancient red-stone buildings. She peered at the old machine shop, and realized what had thrown her off – the building was now covered in colored lanterns. They hung from old wire and twists of rope, dangling from the roof eaves and shining in the windows like bright eyes.

A moment later, she noticed that most of the other older buildings on the street also had colored lanterns or even a few strings of small navigation lights hung about them too, though none of them were as well-lit or decorative as the machine shop. It made for a lovely effect, sure, but Jyn wondered how the many hells Yashfeen had managed to get all those lanterns strung up if she could barely make it up and down a staircase. As Jyn neared the door, she glanced down and jerked to a stop; the cracked pavement of the street in front of the door was decorated in a small but colorful pattern, looping green rings inside flowing white and red knot patterns, a pink flower blooming at the top of the design and an orange star at the bottom. She turned and checked down the street, and saw similar colorful patterns chalked in front of every door, like temporary rugs. Carefully, Jyn stepped around the chalk design and lifted her hand to knock, then hesitated, remembering how Yashfeen had panted and shook going up and down those stairs.

Jyn dropped her fist and reached instead into her jacket pocket, fishing out her primary lockpick and wiggling it into the handle. Well, she’d been invited right? She was just going to save Yashfeen a painful trip.

It took her a moment longer than she liked to admit, because she hadn’t jimmied a real physical lock in a long time (there was even a _deadbolt_ , something Saw had taught her to pick more out of thoroughness than because it was a typically useful skill). But soon enough she had the door cracked open and was slipping through like a wraith. It was a relief to be out of the brightly lit street and into the shadows of the machine shop garage. The colorful lanterns in the windows were the only lights on down here, but they were all Jyn needed to pick her way through the neat stacks of engine parts and tables full of tools. A hammock was swinging gently in the corner that she hadn’t seen last night, but then, she’d been plenty distracted at the time.

The stairs were dark too, but there was a thin, faint strip of light under the door leading into Yashfeen’s apartment. Jyn turned the handle gently and eased the door open.

“Hey!” A loud male voice exclaimed. A humanoid body appeared around the door, one hand reaching out and snagging her jacket collar.  

Jyn reacted, snapping her hand up and clamping down around the attacker’s fingers. She twisted his hand across her chest and down, bringing her other hand up to latch onto the back of his elbow and force it painfully straight, trapping him in an arm bar. The attacker (Human, male, slightly taller than her, skinny, clearly not combat trained) squawked and flailed, stumbling as she forced his torso forward. Before he could re-balance, Jyn threw out her leg and hooked his ankle, using his momentum to shove him to his knees, one arm stretched painfully out behind him.

“Mum!” The man shouted frantically, “ _Run_!”

Jyn blinked, and snapped up her head to see Yashfeen suddenly appearing in the open door of her bedroom in a pale blue wrap, her eyes wide and her mouth open in shock. Jyn looked from her to the back of the man’s dark head, and then to Yashfeen again. “Bodhi?” she hazarded.

Yashfeen nodded, the fear fading into an uncertain smile.

“Wait, what?” The man tried to turn his head to look at her. “Who the – who are you? What’s going - gah!” He yelped as Jyn abruptly let him go and stepped back, and he fell almost flat on his face to the floor. Definitely not a combatant, Jyn thought dryly, when his reaction to this was to simply roll over and stare at her from the floor.

“Sorry,” she told Yashfeen, then looked pointedly down at the lanky man on the floor. “You shouldn’t grab people,” she chided mildly.

“ _I_ shouldn’t – _you’re_ the one who – _what_?” Bodhi spluttered indignantly, then finally sat up and looked toward the kitchen, where Yashfeen was now gracefully setting a kettle to boil. “Mum!”

“Beloved, this is Janan, our guest,” Yashfeen said serenely, gesturing for Jyn to take a seat at the small table again. “And Janan, I see you have met my son, Bodhi. He came home for _svelo dize._ The, ah, festival of light, _”_ she explained at Jyn’s blank look. “It begins at midnight, when all the lanterns will be up, and tomorrow you will see many beautiful _nafas_ painted onto buildings and streets.”

Jyn sat and slid one hand under the table to rest on her blaster out of sight. “Those chalk drawings outside the doors?”

“Yes, is it not lovely? Bodhi hung the lanterns for me, but I still draw my own _nafas_ ,” Yashfeen said this like it was an important point of pride.

“Do your guests always come in unannounced these days?” Bodhi grumbled, shooting Jyn a sideways look as he heaved himself off the floor and shooed his mother away from the stove.

“Nearly as often as my son does,” Yashfeen replied, unperturbed.

“Mum, I told you, I didn’t know we’d be given shore leave,” Bodhi wrinkled his nose and waved a hand in an irritated gesture. “We weren’t even supposed to be running shipments this way for another month, but - ” he cut himself off suddenly, to Jyn’s slight disappointment.

“Well, anyway, I have a day or two,” he said instead. He pulled down three mugs from the cupboard and pulled a platter of covered food from the small storage box on the counter, setting it in front of Jyn with a sharp thump. “I knew that wasn’t for me,” he said with a stiff set to his shoulders. “I never like lentils in my _keema_.”

The _keema_ was vegetable and meat mash, tepid but well-spiced and filling all the same. Since Jyn had barely eaten all day, she shrugged and dug in, nodding a quick thanks to Yashfeen. “All meat and no vegetables,” she muttered around a mouthful at Bodhi, shaking her head as if in reproof, “that’s not how you grow strong.” Yashfeen laughed softly into her hand, and Bodhi gaped.

“Alright, so you _have_ been here before,” he answered eventually, and the last of the tension in his shoulders went out. When the tea was ready, he thunked it gracelessly down on the table between the three of them, and poured his mother a cup first. “How long are you staying, Janan?”

Jyn swallowed her mash slowly, buying herself time, because she hadn’t missed the grey flightsuit hanging against the wall in the sitting area. The Wheel of Destiny, the crest of his Imperial Majesty, was patched onto the sleeve and only just visible, but Jyn didn’t need to see it well to know what it was, or what it meant. The pips on the flightsuit’s shoulders marked him as a supply flight lieutenant – a low rank officer in a support squadron, sure, but still technically an officer.

 _He takes care of his mother_ , Yashfeen had said, with her eyes down and her mouth tight.

(Stormtroopers were marching down the Pilgrim’s Way, and Imperial cargo pilots had their rigid schedules changed without warning. Jyn tucked the information in the back of her head, and buried her worries deep down.)

“Not sure,” she said at last. “Probably gone tomorrow. Done all my sightseeing already,” she shoveled the last of the _keema_ in her mouth and stared pointedly at the green-patterned lantern on the windowsill nearby. “Didn’t know about the festival. I don’t like big crowds.”

“It will indeed be very crowded,” Yashfeen nodded. “But you should stay at least through tomorrow night. The monks light up the great Temple with many candles, and you can see it reflecting on the crystals from across the whole of the city. Bodhi and I used to go up on the roof every year and pretend it was a special show just for us. We would sing songs and dance. Do you remember that, Beloved?”

Bodhi hunched his shoulders up slightly and ducked his head. “Yes, Mum,” he mumbled, embarrassed. “Anyway,” he turned to Jyn and cleared his throat, “It’s late, and Mum’s brought out the good futon for you,” he gestured to the rolled-up mat, still sitting where Jyn had left it this morning. “I’ve got a hammock downstairs, so I’ll be there if you need anything,” he smiled, a wide and genuine expression, and despite herself, Jyn felt her mouth twist into a small smile in response.

“Thanks,” she said, although inside she was calculating how much more difficult it would be to sneak out, in the event that she had to escape. Maybe she should stay somewhere else tonight, somewhere that didn’t also house an Imperial - but then, what were her options? The streets, or a warehouse full of recruits and…and a man she knew too well and not at all. No, this would have to do, for one more night at least.

Oblivious to her internal fretting, Bodhi and Yashfeen were cleaning up the table, talking about the _nafas_ patterns they’d seen drawn on their neighbors’ walls and streets and discussing the food that Yashfeen intended to cook for the next evening. Jyn slipped out of their way and unrolled her futon, waving to Bodhi as he went down the stairs and acknowledging Yashfeen’s soft goodnight with a nod. The earlier exhaustion was surging back up now, and though she knew she ought to stay up at least another hour or so to make sure the Imperial didn’t pull anything, her eyelids felt heavy as stone and her limbs were sluggish.

The lantern on the window above her futon was red and gold, and its light blended with the green of the lantern in the far window and the blue of Bodhi’s holo still glowing on the kitchen counter. The lights swirled and danced slightly as the candles flickered, and as Jyn walked through the darkness, the lights fractured and spun out into the black cavern of the Dome of Deliverance. The burly monk nodded to her as she passed, his arms still crossed as he surveyed the crowd behind her (she didn’t turn to look, but she knew the crowd was there, always seething close by, watching, waiting). “I don’t want any trouble,” she told the big monk, but he merely shrugged, because they both knew that trouble had no concern for silly things like what people _wanted_. The crowd grumbled and growled behind her, surging closer, and Jyn broke into a run.

The lights glittered and grew, and then one by one began to explode. The roar of fire, the harsh scrape of stone against stone as wreckage flew around her, and Jyn threw one arm up over her head to shield herself from the debris while the other hand raised her blaster. “ _FORWARD!_ ” Saw bellowed beside her, and Magva Yarro trilled her chilling ululation as she lunged ahead. Codo and Maia shrieked their battle cries, and Jyn opened her own mouth to scream defiance as well, to let the ‘troopers know that she was not afraid of their grenades, their bombs, their blasters. But Saw’s heavy hand was suddenly on her shoulder, and she jerked around to face him. “No,” he yelled over the chaos. “Not you, Jyn, not now. You must wait. You must wait for me.”

“No! Don’t do this,” Jyn cried, because she knew what was coming, she knew what he was going to say. “Please, not this.”

“I will be back in the morning,” Saw shoved a knife in her hand and turned his back. “Wait for me. You must wait.” The golden lights behind his head turned red and blossomed outward, fire and death and betrayal, and then Jyn stood alone in the treacherous darkness.

“Saw!” She screamed, “ _Saw_!” And she meant to run, run fast and catch him this time and not be left in the dark, _never again_ , but her feet were rooted to the ground. Frantically, she looked down at her boots, the knife raised, prepared to cut herself free and _run_ –

\- but _he_ was kneeling at her feet, his head back and his dark eyes wide as he watched her. Furious, scared, betrayed, Jyn brought the knife down to his throat and pressed hard against his dark skin. Red light spilled from the shallow cut, but he didn’t move. “I should kill you,” she screamed at him. “Liar. _Liar_.”

“You’re welcome to stay.” He said it softly, but it cut through the cacophony and wrapped her in silence, until there was nothing but the darkness, Jyn’s rough breathing, and the starlight in his eyes.

Jyn dropped the knife, and awoke to the grey light of pre-dawn creeping across the ceiling of Yashfeen’s home. Distantly, she could hear something clanging in the garage below, though Yashfeen’s bedroom door was still shut. Jyn rolled her mat up and tucked her scarf tight around her neck, making sure her kyber crystal was well hidden.

Bodhi was standing at the same workbench where Yashfeen had been yesterday, poking at the speeder engine and singing softly to himself in a smooth, rapid flow of words. Jyn watched from the stairwell as he pulled back the drop cloth and saw the whistle booster, and he rolled his eyes heavenward. Then he caught sight of her, and immediately stopped singing, mouth hanging open slightly.  “Good morning,” he said a little awkwardly. “You’re up pretty early. I hope you were comfortable. That futon is a bit old, but my mother keeps it well stuffed. Could you not sleep?”

“It was fine.” Jyn tilted her head at him, “You?”

He smiled and shrugged. “I’m still on Ead- um, I’m still on my last planet’s time zone. It’s midday to me right now.” Jyn didn’t answer, leaning against the wall and watching him putter around the workbench, and at last he said, “So I guess you’re off, then?”

She nodded.

“Well, if you decide to hang about for the festival, you really shouldn’t miss the Temple light up tonight.” He grinned a little at her, a sheepish but still excited smile. “It really is something else.”

“Maybe,” she said as nonchalantly as she could. “Thanks.”

“See you around, Janan,” he called after her, and then that soft prayer in a rolling tongue, just like his mother had said the morning before. If she ever came back, she really should ask what it meant.

The warehouse was quiet when Jyn walked in through a different entrance than the one she’d used yesterday. The paper on the windows had been reinforced with what looked like torn labels from the crates, making it impossible to see through them and dimming the light significantly. There was no sign that anyone was there, or had been there for a long time. Jyn stood silent and still by the door for a moment, and then slipped to the side, behind a haphazardly stacked pile of crates, and softened her steps to be as quiet as possible. Something scraped across the catwalk above her, the faintest sound of rubber on metal, and slowly, carefully, Jyn started to climb the crates.

She wound her way up the stack until she came level with a section of the upper catwalk. She saw two huddled shapes crowded by the railing just to her left, the Snivvian and the Sullustan, watching the empty space below them eagerly. Jyn swept her gaze around and caught the faint outline of another recruit – the Arcona, judging by the distinct angle of their profile – leaning against the little observation station on the catwalk. Rolling her muscles and placing her heels to keep the noise minimized, Jyn stalked across the narrow catwalk and gently placed the tip of each index finger against the back of the Snivvian and Sullustan’s heads. “Don’t make a sound, or I will shoot,” she breathed, and both froze. Jyn grinned a little to herself. “Lie down,” she ordered in the same near-soundless tone. “You are both dead until told otherwise.”

The Snivvian’s shoulders slumped, and the Sullustan heaved a silent sigh, but they both dutifully lay down. Jyn slunk across the catwalk, keeping the posts and support beams between her and the Arcona, who was watching the floor as intently as the others. She placed her fingertip to their neck and repeated her instructions, and though the Arcona’s hands fluttered in surprise, they obeyed as silently as the other two.

The Bothan probably knew she was here, Jyn decided, and the Shistavanen too. The Lasat was an unknown – his kind were a rare sight since the Empire razed their homeworld, and while she’d heard Lasat had sharp ears, she had no experience with them. Her best bet was to avoid those three as long as possible and zero in on…let’s see, the Human woman and the Twi’lek. They were probably together, somewhere it would be easier to stay in cover since neither had combat experience. Jyn took advantage of the Arcona’s viewpoint (a good spot, just not covered from the rear) and scanned the floor below.

A flash of bright yellow and pink caught her eye, and she scowled a little because seriously, someone needed to get that woman some more subtle clothes. Jyn eyed the stairwell nearby, but it was rusted and would expose her to view from half a dozen sightlines at least. Instead, she moved back towards the wall and found a reasonably sturdy looking support beam, and carefully climbed down using the large bolts and crossbeams as hand holds. The heavy beam shielded her from view of the room, and once she was down, she slid through the stacks of crates until she came around the back of the little alcove her targets had set up. Maddel was kneeling along the edge of a large crate and watching the open part of the warehouse, using a careful sweep pattern that looked very much like a sniper’s low-terrain scan. Sanduni, however, was sitting crosslegged with her back to the crate, fiddling with a small sewing kit.

Jyn climbed again, this time up over the nearest stack, and then quietly leapt across the gap above the women’s heads. She was exposing herself to view from the catwalks again, and she was almost certain that at least one person would be up there (he was a sniper, it was only natural that he would chose the high ground), but he didn’t call her out. So Jyn hunched over her quarry and then dropped, cat-like, directly on the Twi’lek. She managed to get a hand clamped over the woman’s mouth before she could screech, pinning her down with a knee and spinning to point her finger directly in Maddel’s startled face. “Bang,” she said softly, “you’re dead. Lie down.” Maddel scowled, but did as ordered. “You too,” Jyn told the Twi’lek, although she didn’t pretend to shoot. Her lilac face was already a little grey from the fright, and she was not joining to be a frontline soldier anyway. Most likely she’d be a quartermaster of some kind, a gentle back-lines job where she could help without being shot at every day (Probably. Hopefully).

With both women down, Jyn considered her options. She could go high again, try to circle around and find him before he “shot” her, or she could -

\- movement behind her, and Jyn moved without thinking, ducking and rolling forward as a large bronze-furred arm swiped through the air where her neck had been. She landed on her feet and felt thick fingers clamp down on her hair, claws digging a little into her scalp. Jyn slapped her hands back over her head, trapping that hairy hand against her skull, and stepped backwards, leaning her upper body low and spinning on her heel. The movement carried her behind her attacker, twisting the Shistavanen’s elbow sharply into an unnatural angle. Lorga’s fingers spasmed open and she tried to retract her arm, but Jyn hung on grimly and continued to twist around in the same direction, popping up behind her attacker and now in complete control of the other woman’s upper body. She forced Lorga’s bent arm up behind her back, and the Shistavanen fell to her knees with a grunt. Jyn tapped her against the back of the head with her fingertip and whispered _bang_ again.

Lorga growled, but obediently sagged until Jyn let go and then she lay down too, wrinkling her nose at the Twi’lek, who giggled softly from her spot a meter away.

The Bothan, the Lasat, the sniper, Jyn counted in her head, and mentally sighed. There was very little chance she’d be able to sneak up on any one of them.

But “very little chance” wasn’t “no chance,” so Jyn moved to the downed Twi’lek and picked up her fallen sewing kit, rifling through it (carefully, because these things were useful and she didn’t want to mess it up too badly) until she found a couple of small metal tabs. She wasn’t sure what they were, but they would do the trick. She winked at the Twi’lek, then climbed about halfway back up the crates above the fallen women, clinging to the stack with careful footholds and one strong grip. With her other arm, she chucked one of the metal tabs out into the warehouse floor. She heard the distant clink of metal hitting metal, waited a long moment, then tossed another, slightly closer to herself. A long beat, and then another tab, closer to her position yet.

The Lasat came around the corner cautiously, following the “footsteps,” and Jyn whistled softly. He jerked his head up at the sound, and found himself staring at her pointed fingertip. “Bang,” she whispered, but he was already lowering himself to the floor with a resigned expression. Two left, but she was running out of tricks.

Well, he hadn’t stopped her the last time, so with a mental shrug, Jyn went high again, climbing up to the top of the stack and scanning around. She couldn’t see anyone up on the catwalks, but there were a lot of beams and blind spots. She focused instead on the floor, and it took her almost five minutes to find the Bothan crouched under a small “tent” of stacked crates and a torn tarp artfully draped to look like a pile of discarded garbage rather than a deliberately constructed hunting blind.

Sekel was stretched out on the floor inside the blind, a small patch of pale fur only just visible from Jyn’s extreme angle. Jyn palmed the last metal tab and aimed carefully. Her throwing arm wasn’t perfect, but she managed to sling the metal tab right through the gap where Sekel peered out, smacking her between the eyes. The Bothan jumped like a startled loth-cat and stared up, and Jyn pointed her finger at her solemnly. Sekel blinked, then bowed her head in acknowledgement and pressed her hands to the floor to signal her ‘dead’ status.

Jyn glanced around, and then fast as she could, turned and leaped onto the nearest beam. The bolts really were large on these things, she thought absently, using them to pull herself back up to the catwalk. Pre-Empire architecture, maybe by decades. She shimmied back onto the catwalk and hunkered down behind a pillar, considering her options. The three recruits she had already neutralized up here were somewhere around the corner to her right, so she slipped left and moved from shadow to shadow, until at last she saw him lying stretched out in a small alcove, a creaking stairwell on his right, a broken gap in the catwalk to his left. No one could sneak up on him from either direction, and there were no support beams beneath him, so no one could pull her climbing trick straight up underneath.

So that left _above_. He was scanning the catwalks through his modified sniper scope, and either he’d lost her when she climbed or he was deliberately ignoring her, because he was focused too much on the far right, where her downed recruits lay.

Jyn stepped up on the railing of the catwalk and hoisted herself again. She wouldn’t be able to walk on the thinner support beams above the catwalk, but she could crawl on her belly.

She was almost directly above him when she saw his head cock to the side, and she knew that if she froze he would inevitably look up and catch her. So instead she dropped, a little sloppy and noisily, but it gave him almost no time to react. He rolled on his back, rifle coming up reflexively, but his reaction time really was excellent because he was already lowering it in the half second it took her to fall. He had no time to do more than that, however, and Jyn landed with her knees on either side of his waist. Quick as mercury she pinned his shoulders down beneath her hands and leaned forward, smirking at him.

“Impressive,” he murmured, only a few centimeters from her face, and Jyn was _not_ thinking about the last time they had been in a position like this.

Jyn quirked her eyebrow at him and answered in the same soft voice, “And how many times could you have shot me?”

“Once or twice,” he answered in a casual tone that told her _several_ , his eyes locked on her own. He clutched his rifle in his left hand, pressed against the floor to the side, but his right hand hovered just a breath away from her waist. Jyn could feel the warmth of his palm, and the urge to lean into it was nearly overwhelming. She stayed still, and stared him down instead. He lay just as motionless, his head back against the metal catwalk, his throat exposed. If she looked (she _wasn’t_ looking) she could see the edge of the fading mark on his neck. She really should have aimed a little lower with that, at least get it all the way below the collar. (A tiny, treacherous part of her mind whispered _next time_ , and Jyn stomped on it as hard she could.)

“Why did you follow me?” she asked just barely above a whisper. “If you thought I was some kind of test, why ask me to…?”

“Stay?” he finished for her, and Jyn nodded, her heart racing, her skin hot and tight all over again. She was _not_ thinking about the last time he’d been under her like this.

“I was on Coruscant,” he said after a moment, his voice low and strained. “Undercover, with…some unpleasant people. I received this mission on my shuttle afterwards, and came straight here. Your accent-” he shook his head, eyes dark and mouth pressing into a thin, hard line. “I thought you were one of them, one of the people I’d been working for. With.”

“Coruscanti gangsters,” she murmured, a little amused, a little alarmed.

He nodded slightly, his breath ghosting across her cheek, and Jyn realized with a start that she was leaning much further down than before. She pulled back slightly but not entirely, because he looked like he still had more to say. “But you let the Klatooinian muggers live,” he said. “If you were _La Brut_ \- one of them, you never would have done that. Never would have dreamed it, or thought that I would want you to.”

“Then when did you start thinking I was some kind of Alliance evaluator?”

He gave her that half-smile that pulled at her heart, though this time it was a touch rueful. “I never even considered it until I walked in and saw you here.”

He had rejected that she was a gangster, and he hadn’t known she was Alliance. So the time in between the alleyway and the warehouse, that day in the city together, the night that followed, it had all been…

Jyn swallowed, and asked her last question. “What did you think I was testing you _for?_ ”

The smile wiped off his face instantly, and his eyes went blank and distant. “Have you ever been in the Coruscant undercity?”

She shook her head.

“The slums are several levels below the surface,” he said in a detached voice, “too far down for the sun to ever reach, you need a breather to go outside, and the only people you meet are desperate, psychotic, or both. The gangs have valuable information and resources, but they demand a high price in turn. No other agent has ever run that particular operation for longer than five weeks.” He was staring past her now, a thousand-yard stare into some shadowy past just over her shoulder. “And that one killed himself. Waited until he completed his debrief, then went back to his quarters and swallowed his Lullaby.” He said it like he was describing the weather, or a bit of idle gossip, and Jyn wanted to smack him, or kiss him, or… _fooma eh ezree_ , anything to drag him back to the present.

Her mouth was dry and her heart ached in her chest, but she forced herself to confirm, “Six months?”

His blank eyes refocused on hers, though his voice stayed empty and emotionless. “Six months.”

And all Jyn could think was, _oh_.

“For what it’s worth,” he told her, voice thawing slightly into something more recognizable, “I’m glad I followed you. I’m glad that you came with me.” His eyes were still distant, but Jyn thought she could see just a faint spark of warmth somewhere behind the mask, “Thank you, Liana.”

The false name hit her like a slap, and she jerked a little. Then, before she could think it through, before she could stop herself, she leaned down and brushed her mouth against his ear and breathed, “Jyn. My name is Jyn.”

Against her chest, she felt him drew in a long, slow breath. He turned his head slightly so that she could almost feel his lips against her cheek, and she knew that he was bracing himself to say something difficult, either to give her his own name or to admonish her for giving up her own. Suddenly, she desperately didn’t want to hear either, and she shoved herself up and away from him, grabbing the railing of the catwalk and leaping lightly over it to the nearest stack of crates. She landed with a heavy thud, but there was just enough room to roll forward and dispel the momentum. She leaped up to her feet, cleared her throat, and yelled, “Alright, drill is over. Recruits, form up!”

She braced her feet on top of the crates and folded her arms, making herself as visible as she could so they would find her quickly. They came slowly from all around the warehouse, and the Snivvian bounded up to the spot underneath Jyn’s perch and trilled up at her, “Sarge, that was _epic_!”

Jyn gave him her flat sergeant’s stare, but it was apparently diluted from the distance, because he just grinned wider and bounced a little on his heels. “Form up,” she told him sternly, and he shuffled back into a loose line with the rest.  She waited until they were done muddling about and she had their attention, and then Jyn swung over the edge of the crates.

“The trick to surviving a long fall - ” she braced herself, then dropped from the edge.

“- is to turn a big one - ” she continued in a clipped tone, catching herself on a slightly over-hung crate, which groaned under the impact, but she let go before her full weight could pull on it.

“- into several little -” the next crate shifted slightly as she struck it with her heels, slowing her momentum but pushing off before she came to a full stop.

“ - falls that you can- ” her hand slipped a little on the final crate, and Jyn clamped her jaw shut to keep herself from yelping and pushed off again before she had time to think about it.

“ – _control_ ,” she grunted as she slammed to the ground hard enough to drive her to one knee. But she pushed herself back up immediately and kept her face and breathing under control, as if that had gone entirely as planned. “It works for combat too,” she said conversationally.

“ _Epic_ ,” Am hissed again, still grinning.

“Are…are we gonna have to _do_ that?” Sanduni asked in a small voice, fiddling with a filmy layer of her dress.

“Thank you for the demonstration, Sergeant,” the sniper said in a dry voice from somewhere in the shadows above them. “But I think perhaps we should debrief the drill before we start throwing our people from high places.”

“The skills of the sergeant are, to this recruit, very inspiring,” the Sullustan said in his native tongue, bowing slightly.

“She _wasted_ us,” Am giggled, but he choked it off when Jyn leveled her stare at him again, this time close enough for it to register.

Lorga shuffled her large clawed feet and growled in what was probably supposed to be an undertone to Maddel, “What about the captain? She get him too?”

"He had that big rifle," Maddel answered. "They set this up yesterday."

"On the contrary," he materialized almost right behind the Human fem, and Jyn suppressed a smile at Maddel's shocked expression, "the sergeant was probably expecting to find a lot of sleeping recruits that she could shout awake. NCOs tend to love that sort of thing." He sauntered casually around the formation, nodding companionably at Jyn as if this was the first time they had spoken that morning. "I imagine she's displeased that I deprived her of the pleasure."

"You never let me do anything fun, sir," she replied dryly.

"So the lesson is that we're all terrible?" Am wrinkled his snout. "I mean, what was the point of all that if the sarge was just gonna wipe the floor with us?"

"An evaluation," Inkari rumbled in his deep voice. "They wanted to know exactly how terrible we would be."

"We wanted to see what you would do in an uncertain situation," Sward broke into their assorted muttering smoothly. "Would you hunker down for protection? Look for partners? Try to get a better vantage point? These are things you should consider in any situation."

The Snivvian shifted from foot to foot and scratched at his ear. "Which was the right answer?"

"There isn't one," Jyn said bluntly.

"Every situation is fluid," Sward agreed, smiling pleasantly. "Group Two, you are shipping out tonight. That means I have the day to finish a basic evaluation on your skills and potential, and of course to get your paperwork in order. Your path from here will require scandocs. Group Three, I'd appreciate if you would run defense drills with Sergeant Hallik. She can get a good look at your techniques, and perhaps give you a few, ah, tips."

"You mean she can knock us on our tails some more," Lorga grumbled, and Sanduni smiled weakly.

"You can knock each other on your tails," Jyn told her. "Pair off. Inkari with Lorga, Maddel with Sanduni. Over here, people, let's move."

The day passed quickly enough, with Jyn talking her group through mostly defensive moves designed to break grips and knock an attacker back long enough to run. Lorga had been a security guard and Inkari a bodyguard, both trained to subdue attackers, but they were both used to relying on their size and strength against relatively untrained and typically unarmed opponents. Maddel had no training at all but made up for it with a driven sort of focus that let her pick things up quickly. Sanduni was dreadful, flinching at any fast movement and closing her eyes whenever she was supposed to be counter-striking. Jyn swallowed her criticism the best she could; the Twi'lek would have been eaten alive in the Partisans, but shit, this wasn't the Partisans, was it? In a day, Sanduni would be on her way to a safe (if utterly chaotic, barely supplied) quartermaster's station, and whether or not she ever learned to block a punch would be her problem.

Inexperience and timidity aside, Jyn found herself almost enjoying the day. There was something soothing about just focusing on simple things like where your hands should go in an arm-bar, something calming in throwing a 90 kilogram Lasat over her hip like a sack of pta fruit. Lorga shook her head until her ears flapped every time Jyn planted her on the deck, too, which was weirdly endearing. At one point, she flipped the tall Shistavanen over her shoulder and pinned her face-down, and when Jyn glanced up, face flushed and teeth bared in a grin, she caught Sward watching them from atop a nearby crate. The Sullustan was perched next to him, hands making a series of sharp gestures in the air as he spoke, but even from a distance she could feel the sniper's eyes trained on her.

Lorga shook her ears again, and Jyn forced herself to refocus on her recruits.

By the time the faint light through the windows began to fade, Jyn's patience was just about to wear thin. She felt restless and uncertain, and even the hard workout she'd put herself through all day (the recruits were allowed to go easy on each other, but if they didn't work hard on her, she made them feel it) did little to settle her. Sward was passing out ration bars and water again, smiling pleasantly and speaking calmly to them at the same time. Jyn watched, focusing on his hands and his body language to avoid watching his face (that fake smile really crawled under her skin in a way she wasn't sure she could rationalize). Not that it mattered - she was leaving in a matter of hours, gone from this planet and this whole mess forever.  
  
He turned, caught her looking, and Jyn wrenched her eyes up to his for a startled moment. Slowly, his face softened into that half-smile, warm and quiet and real, and Jyn thought _to hell with it_.

She pushed off from the wall and strode across to him, shoving her hair back behind her ears and adjusting her old scarf to sit more snuggly around her throat. He saw her coming and turned fully away from the recruits, walking to meet her as if they were about to have a conference of leadership. "Something you need, sergeant?"

“I think we should change the plan,” she told him bluntly as she came up, pausing to check his reaction and tacking a belated "sir" on to it. He gestured for her to continue. Jyn mulled it over for a moment, picking her words with care. “These are my recruits,” she said at last. He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt, so Jyn went on in a slightly bolder voice. “I picked them up, and I don’t like leaving until they’re in the clear. If you feel it’s too dangerous for us both to remain, then I recommend that you depart tonight with Group Two, but I…” she paused again, because she wasn’t entirely sure why it felt so important for her to stay. _I have a bad feeling about something_ was useless, and _I don’t want to leave you alone here_ was…no.

“Something’s off,” she said quietly.

She expected him to ask what she meant, or maybe just tell her not to be ridiculous, but instead he glanced at the papered over window and said, “You feel it too?”

“’Troopers on Pilgrim’s Way,” she confirmed.

“And a twenty percent increase in Imperial shuttles in the space ports,” he muttered, still looking at the window.

Jyn narrowed her eyes at him. “What?”

He turned and met her expression, surprised by her reaction. “Just something I noted, sergeant,” he replied, watching her with a slight frown. “Is something wrong?”

Jyn dropped her eyes, frowning as she pondered this. Bodhi had said “we,” hadn’t he? **_We_** _weren’t supposed to be running any shipments this way._

“What is it?” he asked, and she hesitated, because there was no way he was going to react well to the news that she was sharing quarters with an Imperial officer, even a lowly flight lieutenant in a non-combat squadron. He leaned a little closer, his voice dropping too low for even the Bothan to pick out. “Tell me, Jyn.”

The last time someone had called her by her first name (in a non-official “here is your mission briefing” sort of way), she’d been sixteen and dying in a gutter. The agent who had found her, had seen her fight desperately with a much larger, healthier opponent for a scrap of rotten food and _win_ , had taken her hand and bought her a whole meal. She’d eaten slowly and carefully, while the recruiter had told her about the Alliance, about fighting the kind of evil that left people like her scrambling for survival. At the end, Jyn had given the woman her name and watched her eyes go wide, and then she’d said it back.

That was the last time anyone had talked to _Jyn_ , because after that they only spoke to _Private Erso_ , then _Specialist Erso_ , and eventually _Sergeant Erso_.

But the officer wasn’t asking the sergeant, wasn’t speaking to his subordinate or his comrade-in-arms. He was talking to _Jyn_ , his eyes trained on her face, watching her every reaction. Her name on his tongue was a powerful thing, she thought distantly, noting how her heart sped up and her eyes widened against her will. It was probably the stupidest thing she’d done yet, giving him her real name. There was still a chance this was all some elaborate game, maybe even a test that he was running on _her_.

But if she went down that mental road, she’d probably go mad.

So she took a deep breath and tore her gaze from his, refusing to let him see exactly how he had just thrown her world off kilter. “My contact in the city, where I’ve been staying,” she explained in an even, detached voice, “she’s an Alliance sympathizer, but her son is…not. And he’s in town because the Empire diverted transport pilots here suddenly.”

“What kind of transport?” his voice mirrored hers, concern transmuting into professional evaluation. “And why was he on one?”

“Cargo, transport, and support squadron,” Jyn answered, then sighed and braced for the inevitable. “He’s a pilot in the Imperial fleet.”

He was silent for a moment, and then his hand was on her shoulder, forcing her to face him. Behind him, she caught a glimpse of the Twi’lek’s startled eyes and the Snivvian’s curious face, though the rest of the recruits were determinedly not looking. Then all Jyn could see was his dark eyes, sharp and focused as a sniper sighting a target. “ _Maldita sea_ , _mujer,_ " he cursed, "you are sleeping with an _Imperial officer_?”

Jyn’s eyebrows shot up and her lips drew back in an incredulous snarl. “ _What?_ ”

He blinked, and then shook his head, throwing up a hand to stop her outrage as he grimaced in frustration. “ _Estás pero si bien pendejo_ , no, that was not - _jodor_ , that was _not_ what I meant.” He made a harsh gesture with his hand, as if batting away the offending words, then met her eyes again. “Forgive me, I meant, you have been sleeping with an Imperial officer nearby, in, in what? The same house?”

Jyn glared at him for a moment, then let it go and shrugged. “Only last night. His mother was surprised to see him. Apparently the order to come here was last minute. And he’s not combat trained and carries no weapon. He’s not a threat to me.” Of course, even as she said it she knew what he would say, what the correct response would be, but she was too stubborn to give in and own it.

“ _He_ doesn’t need to be a threat,” he snapped at her. “All he has to do is call in the ‘troopers.”

“I wasn’t planning on going back,” Jyn said repressively, even though she had actually been considering it. “But I had no choice last night. And it bought us some intel,” she cut him off when he opened his mouth to argue further. “We know that the Empire is moving large support resources into this system. Maybe there’s some demonstration about to happen.”

His lips thinned, then he closed his eyes and breathed slowly for a moment, clearly reigning in his desire to press the point. When he opened them again to look at her, he was calm. “Then we must get out as quickly as possible.”

“And keep as much firepower at hand as possible until we do,” she retorted.

He nodded. “Very well, sergeant. You’ll ship out with Group Three.”

“And you?”

He tilted his head slightly, his tongue darting out to lick his dry mouth, and Jyn very carefully did not look at it. “I do not like leaving people behind either,” he answered at last in a voice that was just slightly too husky to be professional. “We will have to work together a little longer,” he paused for the barest of moments, then finished with, “Sergeant Hallik.”

And Jyn was relieved, not disappointed at all.

She nodded, then without breaking eye contact called out, “Group Two, on your feet! We’re moving out.”

Aklee, Sekel, and Katamaras jumped up, faces solemn. After a beat, Maddel leaned over and smacked the back of Am’s head, and the Snivvian nearly dropped his datapad in surprise. “Oh right, Group Two, that’s me,” he squeaked, shutting off his game and tucking his datapad away.

“It’s a different spaceport tonight,” the sniper told her, voice and face blank once more but eyes still locked on her like a targeting laser. He reached out and plucked Jyn’s comm link from her sleeve, tapped in a set of coordinates and then set it in her palm. Jyn turned sharply on her heel and walked away without looking back, but she could feel his eyes on her as she moved towards the door. “With me,” she said briskly to the waiting recruits, and strode into the night, leaving him to organize the line as they followed her out.

The warehouse district was as dull as ever in the grey twilight, which made the contrast with the city proper even more stark. Jyn turned a corner back into the streets and found herself surrounded by colors: there were vibrant, complex chalk drawings over every door and smudged patterns on the streets, glowing multicolored lanterns hung from street signs and window ledges and roof eaves, and even the street traffic seemed particularly bright. Several locals wore colorful wraps and cloaks like the ones Yashfeen wore in her home. Vendors hawked special festival belts and bands woven with colorful threads and beads. For the first time in her life, Jyn’s sensible grey and brown attire stood out in the crowd. The smell of frying meats and rich, spiced teas was so thick it was practically a physical sensation, and the flickering lights turned the restless motion of the crowd into something surreal, like the surface of a boiling sea.

Jyn realized with a start that she had come to a halt, overwhelmed by the chaos and brilliance of the festival. The powerful sensation of eyes on the back of her neck made her shoulders stiffen, and as she forced herself forward into the tumult, she swept an assessing glance behind her. She thought she caught brief sight of an angular Arcona profile, and farther back the Sullustan and the Snivvian were both shoulder to shoulder, not bothering to look like they weren’t shoving their way through the crowd together. The Bothan was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the sniper…

…until Jyn shifted her scan higher, and caught a glimpse of his blue parka as he stepped across a gap between two narrow-set buildings, but he was gone a moment later. High ground, she thought with mixed approval and jealousy, while she was stuck down here in the fray.

It took significantly longer to get to the space port this time, partially because the crowds were so pressing that she could barely shuffle forward, but also because she had to double back twice to find Am and Katamaras. Both men were short and stout, and while Katamaras mowed his determined way through the masses like a miniature bulldozer, the Snivvian kept getting caught in the whirls and eddies of the crowd. Street performers added to the problem, because wherever they set up, their audience would swirl and distort the traffic flow, like large stones in a stream. A slender Imzig nearly startled Jyn into a reflexive punch when she burst out into trilling song an arm’s length away, and a procession of monks waving lanterns and rhythmically banging on red-painted drums forced everything to a halt for several minutes as they cleared a temporary path through the madness.

But finally, Jyn turned down the less decorated, more utilitarian streets towards the designated space port, and the crowds thinned to something less crushing. For the hundredth time, she checked behind her and saw with relief that the Snivvian and Sullustan were still following, Katamaras looking placid and steady, Am now wearing some kind of pink and purple headband with a colorful flower beaded into the center of his forehead.

Jyn rolled her eyes and sidled off to the side of the space port gate. This one had slightly higher security, with a body scanner and two alert-looking guards. But the scandocs she’d given the recruits passed easily enough, and when one of the guards called them a cute couple, Katamaras surprised Jyn by casually tossing an arm around Am and blandly thanking the guard without hesitation. He might not blend well, she thought with some amusement, but he could think quick on his feet. The fence around this space port wasn’t see-through, so Jyn couldn’t watch her recruits board the shuttle, but Am pointed to something very close to the entrance and squeaked “oh, look, _darling,_ there it is!” in a loud, dramatic tone. Jyn smirked a little – he was a terrible actor, but Katamaras merely said “yes, dear,” as placidly as any sentient accustomed to an excitable spouse, and the guards never looked twice.

Sekel took a longer time to arrive than Jyn really liked, but given the crowds, she supposed it couldn’t be helped. The Bothan cleared security neatly, and just before she disappeared through the gate, she brushed casually at her ear closest to Jyn, her fingers briefly forming a traditional gesture of farewell, then she was gone. _Safe journeys to you too_ , Jyn thought.

There was a tense moment when the Arcona appeared - the guards casually asked them some question Jyn couldn’t catch and Aklee’s hands fluttered in obvious alarm. Jyn tensed, wrist poised to flick out her switchblade, but the Arcona gave a soft, fluting answer and the guards raised their eyebrows but nodded and handed back their scandocs without comment. Jyn let out her breath and turned her head, pointedly not watching her last recruit pass into the port. A few minutes later, she heard the whine of an old Taylander shuttle, and then the small oblong spacecraft rose above the fence and vanished smoothly into the night.

Jyn stayed put for several more minutes, idly tapping her boots against the worn street, watching the skyline of Jedha City lighting up as true dark fell. it was almost midnight, she noted, when the Temple would light up. She should probably hurry back to the warehouse, or to Yashfeen’s perhaps – anywhere but on the streets, where the crowds would only get worse throughout the night.

“You’re missing the celebration,” he said from her right, and Jyn cut off the smile before it could grow too big.

“Too noisy,” she murmured, not looking as he walked out of the shadows and to her side. “Too crowded.”

“I thought it was alright,” he leaned against the wall next to her, his thick jacket brushing her arm.

“You weren’t _in_ it,” she grumbled at him.

“I try to stay above such things,” he said mildly, though when Jyn snuck a look at him she could see humor crinkling the corners of his eyes.

She rolled hers at him. “Very funny.”

“It was very colorful. Almost made it too easy to follow you.”

Jyn shrugged a touch defensively. “Nothing I can do about that.”

He hummed a low note thoughtfully, then reached into his coat and pulled out a small cloth bundle. “This might help,” he said off-hand, and tossed it lightly at Jyn.

She caught it reflexively, then stared at it for a long moment until she realized it was a rolled-up scarf. It unwound with a little flick of her wrist, opening into a long, thick swathe of royal blue, with white and yellow stars embroidered along the long edge in a dense pattern. It felt soft and smooth against her rough fingers, brand new and expertly made. Jyn hadn’t owned something this pretty since…well, honestly, if she ever had, she didn’t remember it.

Jyn opened her mouth to tell him she couldn’t accept this, that it was too pretty, too nice, she would only get it torn and filthy and -

“For the knife,” he said quietly, and she snapped her jaw shut again. She was not ready to talk about the knife, or why she'd given it to him. Definitely not ready to remember pressing it into his hand and the feel of his fingers against her lips...

Jyn yanked her thin, tattered grey scarf off, wrapping it around her waist in a way that covered her knife belt and better disguised her truncheons without blocking access to them. Then she looped the starry blue scarf over her head and around her neck and shoulders, tucking the ends in neatly and making sure her kyber crystal was out of sight. It felt odd, to wear something that would normally draw the eye, mark her as distinct. But here, in this crowd, it hid her more effectively than her normal bland color palette. Odd, but...well, nice. Her ears were certainly warmer than before. The little girl that Jyn had long ago locked under the hatch wondered briefly what she looked like. Whatever, it was a useful gift, a good disguise, and she would keep it for now. She turned to thank him, trying to figure out the most professional way to do it.

He was staring at her, his face calm but his eyes as intent as before, a sniper's focus, as physical as a touch, and _I appreciate it, sir_ died on her lips.  To her left, a brilliant flash of color lit up the night, candles lit all at once in the windows and carved alcoves of the Temple of Kyber suddenly igniting in layers from the foundations up towards the glittering eaves. Light glittered and flashed through the dark sky over the city like fireworks or showers of bright stars, and the nearby crowds roared their approval as everything glowed faintly in a kaleidoscope of color.

The lanterns and the kyber lights turned both of them scarlet and gold and green, and Jyn was reminded once more of the creatures from the Paths of Judgment - or maybe some long lost Jedi tale, magic and unreal.

"Come on," he said quietly under the jubilant cheering and the rising sounds of lively music, "I think we should get back."

"Yeah," she replied, and meant to add _I'm right behind you_ but the words stumbled in her clumsy mouth and instead she whispered, "I'm with you."

For a moment he didn't seem to react, then he muttered something under his breath in - wait, was that Alderaanian? Was Fest somewhere on Alderaan? - and then he threw an arm over her shoulders and pulled her in. "You need a warmer coat," he said shortly, sounding exasperated and unsettled. He didn't look down at her again, but he pulled her close against his warm side and set off down the street back towards the warehouse. Jyn thought about pulling away...but the wind was even colder tonight than before, and keeping track of him in that riotous crowd would be truly annoying. So she rolled her shoulders to adjust his grip and wrapped her own arm around his waist for balance (grumbling a little just so he would know she didn't like being hauled around) and matched her stride to his. 

Tomorrow she'd be off this rock anyway, and back to slipping through the shadows of a war that never seemed to end. Tomorrow, she'd be alone again.

So she dug her fingers into his parka and let herself think, one more time,  _just for tonight_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Svelo Dize_ = a very bastardized form of Croatian for "the rising lights," which I chose both because Jedha is based on Sarajevo, and in honor of the upcoming [Rebelcaptain food tour AU](https://moonprincess92nz.tumblr.com/post/165160100256/the-rebelcaptain-food-travel-au-round-robin) because my "episode" is Croatia. 
> 
> On that note: many cultures have a “festival of lights” of some kind, and this one is loosely based on the [Spring Lantern Festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantern_Festival) in China and the [Festival of Light](http://www.lightinjerusalem.org.il/index.php) in Jerusalem. Plus a hefty dash of [Diwali](http://www.diwalifestival.org), an Indian festival that incorporates lights and beautiful colorful paintings/patterns. If it isn’t obvious yet, I’m a sucker for pretty lights and lots of colors. 
> 
> My Urdu is non-existent, so _nafas_ , as far as I can figure from the internet, means “spirit” / “soul” / “self,” and in this context I meant it as a sort of “we draw our spirits onto our homes/businesses” sort of way. Think of them as a way for the people of Jedha to express who they are and what they value through meaningful symbols and patterns on the buildings/streets during a festival that celebrates honesty/the light of truth. Yashfeen’s flower-and-star _nafas_ outside her door is a mix of “welcome to the weary” and “I fear no darkness.” With just a touch of “this, I shall endure.” 
> 
> I spent some time watching self-defense videos for this one, such as [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_YOvLi06-0) and [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4_8PoRQP8w). They’re labeled “self defense for women” but honestly they work for any humanoid. Protect yourselves, friends.
> 
> Yes, I know I keep screwing up the Shistavanen's name - for some reason my word program keeps changing "Lorga" to "Logra." I don't know why, it's not like either of those are words in English. For reference, it's Lorga (Lorga The Clanless, if you're feeling unkind). 
> 
> _fooma eh ezree_ = Bocce for "fire and void!" (okay, well, "fooma eh" is officially Bocce, I made up the word for void based on [these lists of phrases and words](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bocce/Legends), which if you have some time to kill, I recommend you go and read. Because they are kind of hilarious when read without context. My favorites: "That scratch was there when I rented it!" and "Will the bill list the title of the holo?" Because someone took the time to invent a language just to say these things.)
> 
>  _“Estás pero si bien pendejo”_ = slang that basically means “you are a fucking idiot” (for the record, Cassian is saying this one to himself, not Jyn. Don’t you hate when you mistranslate something and it comes across _almost_ as what you meant but actually _really really not_?)


	8. Captain (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was over 12000 words long before I decided to cut it in half and present it as 2 parts. I've got the rest of it mapped out, too, but I'm in the middle of some real world nonsense and might take a bit longer than usual churning them out. Part 2 of this chapter should be up in a couple days.
> 
> EDIT: So I made a [Music Mix](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeJAfAg9N1TiGH3GjyNybzLWbT0W6Rhoz&disable_polymer=true) for chapters 8-15, mostly of songs that I listened to while writing specific parts of the story. Just in case you're interested.

“We’re being followed.”

His breath was warm against her ear, his mouth so close that she could feel his lips brush against her skin. All the same, she really shouldn’t have been able to hear him over the roar of the massive crowds, the street musicians, and the shouting vendors. His voice seemed to cut straight through it all, however, and Jyn’s shoulders went rigid even before she’d fully registered his words.

She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow inquiringly, not bothering to try and shout over the noise (and he was too tall for her to lean up to his ear and pull his own trick back on him). Without really looking at her, he jerked his head over his shoulder. Jyn waited a beat longer, sidestepping around a drunk Rodian as an excuse to twist her head and peer back. He casually took advantage of it to lean his head down again and murmur, “Grey Twi’lek male.”

Jyn caught sight of a thin, scowling Twi’lek staring at her from the shadow of an overflowing floral stand, though his gaze flicked away the moment she caught him. She scanned him quickly before turning her head back, marking his ragged robes, his broken nails, and his…withered lekku.

An alarm screamed in the back of her head. She must have tensed, because Sward’s arm went almost painfully tight around her shoulders for a moment, and then he relaxed slightly and shouted playfully, “This is quite a mess, no? Here, let’s try this!” And then he almost dove through a small gap in the crowd, a move that would have sent Jyn sprawling if she hadn’t been ready for it. The colored lamps lit up the street reasonably well, but they danced and shook with the stamping feet of thousands, making the light jump and flicker across all the crushing bodies. The shifting shadows hid all the little divots and grooves in the stone streets, and with people pressing in on every side, it was a struggle not to trip and lose their balance.

He tugged her slightly in warning before making a sharp left, clearly moving to shake off any potential followers, and Jyn countered by pretending to stumble and dragging him across the street. They ducked and dodged, and at one point even had to break apart to get around a group of chattering Zelton women. To her embarrassment, Jyn had to force herself to unclench her jaw as he momentarily vanished behind the wild pink braids of the Zeltons, but a heartbeat later they passed by and she could see him again. His eyes locked on her instantly, and he threw out a hand to her just as another cluster of pilgrims started to cross between them again. Without thinking, Jyn lunged for his hand and let him pull her hard across the small space, just barely making it to him before she would have been forced away by the traffic.

He tucked her back under his arm as he scanned the streets for a path, and Jyn allowed herself to be held tight, even though a part of her mind was bellowing in Saw’s voice that she was being pathetic, needy, obvious. To shut that part up, Jyn shoved him hard to the side with her hip, and forced both of them into a smaller alleyway. He glanced down at her, startled by the unanticipated move, and Jyn pushed again until his back was against the wall. Before he could say anything, she spun a little under his arm and set her back to his chest, and caught his wrist before he could let go of her shoulders. With a significant glance back and a demanding tug on his wrist, she coaxed him into wrapping his arms around her from behind, and they looked like any pilgrim couple taking a moment out of the crush to just breathe.

“ _Esto es una locura_ ,” he muttered over her head, and though she didn’t quite understand the words, she grasped his meaning easily enough.

“I don’t see him,” she said, examining the crowd critically and forcing her breath to even out. “Clear?”

The sniper tilted his head back and looked up at the catwalks far above them. “Clear,” he replied after a moment. “But I don’t want to get back in that - ” he made a sharp movement with one hand towards the seething crowd “ – madness, not if I can avoid it.”

Jyn nodded, but she couldn’t help but be distracted by the warmth of his arms around her again, and how comfortable this felt, leaning back slightly against him. Her own fingers were still curled around both his wrists as if she were holding him in place. It should have been terrifying, or at least humiliating, to be pinned down like this.

It wasn’t, and she had no idea how to cope with that.

Abruptly, he lowered his head until his mouth was almost pressed to her shoulder. Jyn’s breath caught slightly, but she had enough presence of mind to keep her face calm and her shoulders from hunching up reflexively. 

“Why did you stay?” He said it so quietly that she almost didn’t hear it over the noise from the streets.  For half a moment, she considered pretending that she hadn’t heard, or didn’t understand the question. But he’d earned better than that, at least. Well, _maybe_ he had earned it. _This could still be a trap_ , warned the wary voice in her head that sounded like Saw. _Or he’s just lonely and tired, and you were a warm body after a long, cold mission._

A sharp gust of wind whistled through the dim alley, cutting at her with frozen edges, but he was already turning to put his shoulder between her and the chill. _You’re welcome to stay_ , he’d said.

In her head, Saw growled, _you were just convenient_.

And Jyn thought, _so?_

“It felt safe,” she said, and the sheer audacity of saying it aloud nearly knocked the breath from her. She must have staggered, because she felt him shift his weight to support her. A little thrill went through her chest, not unlike the sensation she sometimes felt when faced with a hard fight, bad odds, a crazy situation. She’d been less nervous when flinging herself into hot zones or off rooftops to escape her enemies. She’d been less tense when carrying bomb parts through Imperial checkpoints as a child. It felt like exposure, like she’d just ripped off her shirt before the world, and yet at the same time it felt inadequate. How could he understand exactly how much that meant to her? How could she explain without sounding psychotic at worst, pathetic at best? She swallowed, tried anyway. “It’s been a long time,” she managed, but couldn’t think how to continue.

She clenched her jaw, struggling to sort out the awkward tumble of words in her mouth – “yes,” he said quietly against her shoulder, and she let them all fade unspoken.

The nearby crowd stuttered and roared, and another musician started a long, high wail of song nearby. They were only a meter or so from the opening of the narrow alley, but it felt to Jyn like they were systems away, a small dark pocket of silence and warmth drifting adjacent but not a part of the world. She slid her cold hands down and slotted her fingers into his, and he leaned against the wall, pulling her back with him. For the second time in three days (in fifteen years), Jyn closed her eyes and allowed herself to be held.

Then it was time to move, and she felt him realize it the same time she did, the way his arms slowly loosened and then dropped, the soft rush of his breath over her shoulder one more time before she stepped away. She shifted forward enough for him to move around her side, and when he turned away from the crowd and reached up for a low-hanging firewalk ladder, Jyn was right behind him. He pulled himself up the ladder, pausing for a moment so his weight would drag it lower for her before climbing further. The ladder dropped low enough for her to reach, but only if she jumped for it. She made it in one try, cursing a little as she was obliged to kick her feet out and walk up the wall in order to get fully on the ladder. He shot her a smirk over his shoulder, which she met with a glare, but they did not speak as they made their way to the rooftops above the busy streets.

Jyn kept most of her focus on the rear, watching for their Twi'lek tail to reappear, checking for security cameras or curious locals looking out windows. She only spared a little attention for the man in front of her, following where he lead, jumping across gaps and weaving around laundry lines and bird hutches mixed in with blinking personal comm towers and holonet receivers. Mostly she just kept a thread of awareness on his back, letting him lead without much attention for where.

So she really couldn’t be blamed for almost slamming into him when he unexpectedly went stone-still in the middle of a random rooftop.

“ _Karking sculag_ ,” she hissed under her breath as she had to jerk backwards to avoid ramming into his back and staggering to regain her balance. She straightened and grabbed his arm, prepared to demand an explanation before her brain caught up with her and she realized he was staring straight at the sky with his shoulders rigid and his fists clenched.

Jyn pushed up to stand beside him and looked, hand still fisted in his sleeve, and then she, too, froze.

She had read somewhere that Imperial I-Class Star Destroyers had an in-atmo top speed of 975 kilometers per hour. Given the huge fuel burn such a speed would require, it was unlikely that they were actually moving that fast. Then again, the fear and rage that shot through her like a blaster bolt probably warped her perception of time, and the next several moments could have been anything from a few seconds to a small eternity as far as Jyn could have said, later.

It seemed almost pretty, at first, like a part of the festival lights, white and glittering. But then it drew closer, looming down from the darkness of Jedha’s night like a wedge-shaped storm, the deep grey of threatening clouds marred by the lightning flashes of in-atmo running lights that blinked and blazed all across the harsh lines of the fuselage. On the ground below them, the festive cheering and music of the crowds suddenly wavered and collapsed into uncertain muttering, then shouting, and then, as the Destroyer began to blot out the stars above the glowing Temple, someone began to scream.

 _Move_ , Saw shouted in her ear. _Move **now**!_

She gripped his arm and shook him, but he stayed rooted to the spot, staring at the Destroyer with a kind of hatred in his eyes that, if the world were fair, would have incinerated even that vast monstrosity on the spot. Jyn pulled once more, then shoved him with her shoulder and snarled, “ _Captain!_ ”

It worked, jolting him back into reality. Without a word, he shrugged off her grip but latched onto her hand, and then they were moving.

Below them, the streets turned vicious as the panic spread through the masses like wildfire. It still resembled a sea, except now the waves were fatal, the colors swirled across the heaving surface like a madman’s nightmare. The Destroyer was impossibly huge above the city, it’s engines a murderous thunder that drowned all screams and any words and every thought beyond _run run run –_ out of the corner of her eye, Jyn saw a flash of harsh white lights descending from the bottom of the Destroyer straight towards the colorful Temple. Abruptly, every light on the Temple went out, plunging the huge building – and half the city – into instant darkness.

At her side, the captain dropped her hand and shouted something that might have been _jump!_ and Jyn threw herself across the wide gap between the last building in their path and a tall pole decorated with lamps and ribbons. She only just got her arms around the polished wooden pole, and slid down wildly, knocking the paper lamps askew. The pole shook as Sward hit it just above her, and she had to scramble to clear a path for him to land at the bottom. They hit the ground running, headed for the warehouse, no more time to worry about tails now that a real threat had appeared.

The booming of the Destroyer’s engines shook the ground and rattled her teeth in her skull, but there was no time to cover her ears, no escape from the way it beat against her heart and her guts and made her want to vomit. Even the screams from the crowd were lost in that endless thunder.

More white lights dropping from the bottom of the Star Destroyer, like raindrops, like bombs – but they fanned out over the city and descended in a regular pattern, and when one screamed by overhead she recognized an Imperial Dropship. The boxy ship slowed and hovered over the spaceport where her recruits had launched not two hours prior - _fuck_ , had they made it out of the system? Were they even now just so much space dust over Jedha? Or worse, had they been tractored in and interrogated?

The dropship opened its gaping door, and smooth human-shaped forms began to pour out, hitting the ground in waves, a white flood of stormtroopers smashing into the edges of the terrified crowds. Jyn and the captain were sprinting now, pounding through the narrow streets towards the warehouse district, and beneath their feet the ground shook more rhythmically, in time to the beat of a thousand boots marching.

They made it to the crumbling fence that surrounded the shipping district, and bile coated Jyn’s tongue as she saw an Imperial shuttle descending from the grey silhouette above, straight for the warehouse docking bay only a few buildings away from where their recruits were hidden. The captain saw it too, and swore in a ragged voice even as he cut sharply to the left and led her past the main entrance to the district and towards a broken bit of fencing.

They had to get their people out – but where would they go? Those dropships were probably at every single space port, the city locked down and the planet inescapable. Standard Imperial invasion protocol, she thought sourly.  Surprise, surround, seize.

The captain vaulted the broken spot on the fence just before her, pausing only long enough to watch her clear the top behind him, then running along the side of the nearest warehouse. Jyn kept close behind, both of them keeping to the shadows as the faint whine of the shuttle sliced through the roar of the Destroyer and the throbbing pulse of the marching ‘troopers. They made it to their own warehouse door just as the shuttle touched down at the nearby port control office, and the captain held the door slightly open, gesturing her through and then crowding in behind her.

The interior was completely black, and Jyn felt a faint crunch of glass under her foot as she stepped cautiously forward – the emergency exit lights over the door had been smashed. The rumble of the Destroyer was slightly muted, but the thick metal walls of the warehouse hummed all around them, dulling all other sound. At her back, Sward groped blindly for her shoulder and started to tug her towards the wall, but before they could move, a vicious snarl rent the buzzing darkness.

Jyn felt more than saw the huge shape barreling towards her from the nearest crates, and she shoved the captain out of the way with one arm even as she drew her truncheon with the other, swinging it low to avoid the oncoming attacker’s head.

The Shistavanen tackled her around the shoulders, lifting her off her feet and slamming her down to the ground with her own large, furry body piling on top. Jyn clenched her teeth shut and tensed her ribcage just before impact to minimize the damage, twisting as hard as she could to the side and smacking her truncheon solidly across Lorga’s side as they fell. The twist forced them to land on their sides rather than with ninety kilograms of muscle and fur on Jyn’s chest, and the smack surprised the Shistavanen enough to weaken her grip. Still, the hard duracrete floor knocked the wind from Jyn’s lungs with an unpleasant lurch, and she gasped for air as she rolled away from her thrashing attacker.

 _“Stand down!”_ The captain’s voice cracked like a whip over them both, and Jyn was on her feet with truncheons out before Lorga fully rolled over.

A flare of dim light around the nearest stack of crates, and Sanduni’s tremulous voice called, “Captain?” He pivoted towards the light, but Jyn stayed still with her eyes locked on the thrashing mass of fur on the floor near her feet.

“Yes, Sanduni,” the captain called in a significantly calmer voice. “It’s me and the sergeant. Are the other two with you?”

“Over here, sir,” Maddel appeared from the opposite direction, a length of rusty pipe in her hands. Inkari lumbered around the corner after her, his massive fists empty but no less threatening.

“On your feet, Lorga,” the captain ordered. “We’re moving out, now.”

“Stars! Are you okay?” Sanduni gasped, catching sight of Lorga behind Jyn’s stiff back and truncheons held at the ready.

“Fine,” Lorga said sourly, shaking herself so hard her ears flapped again.

“Unwise to attack Sergeant Hallik,” Inkari rumbled. “You should have caught the scent.”

“Stinks in here,” Lorga growled, shoving herself to her feet with one arm clutched around her ribs. “And humans all smell alike anyway.”

“A dangerous attitude,” the captain said coolly, “when most of your enemies and half your allies are all human.”

“Time to move,” Jyn snapped before the Shistavanen could respond.

“Where?” Maddel demanded, echoing Jyn’s thoughts. “It’s a full invasion, nowhere to run. We were on the roof watching when the Destroyer came down," she explained to the captain's raised eyebrow. "Seemed harmless.” 

“ _In silence I see the grey-clothed, grey-faced troops marching_ ,” Inkari said in a low tone, eyes unfocused as they gazed up at the ceiling. “ _And my nightmares are like invasions, all successful.”_

“That’s from a famous war lament,” Sanduni said. “By the Talz poet Dyvran Tahmasi. I think.”

“Running now, poetry later,” Jyn replied tartly. She locked her truncheons into place, and turned sharply on her heel to the captain, putting on her best sergeant’s face. “Orders, sir?” _I hope you have a plan_ , she thought at him, _because I don’t have a kriffing clue_.

Suddenly, everything went silent. The warehouse walls stopped buzzing, and the distant throbbing of the Destroyer engines was gone. Jyn saw Sward’s eyes widen a fraction before he smoothed his expression out, and she fought to keep her own even, although the recruits all jumped and looked up again as if they could see through the ceiling to the sky beyond. “What happened?” Sanduni asked in a voice edged with hysteria. “Why did it- ”

“They anchored,” Jyn cut her off shortly.

“What does that mean?” The Twi’lek’s lilac skin was almost grey now, and her hands were clutching at her skirts restlessly. Jyn was just about to snap her into silence again when the Lasat dropped a heavy hand to her shoulder.

“Be still, _švalja_ ,” Inkari said, and Sanduni took a deep breath and closed her mouth tightly.

“I’m on point, Maddel and Inkari with me,” the captain ordered in a calm voice. “Sanduni, Lorga, you stay with Sergeant Hallik, who will take rear guard. Channel Jade Six Talon,” he paused for a moment as both he and Jyn tapped the correct frequency into their comms, “but try to stay in visual range. We’re headed to Haiyang space port,” he called over his shoulder, already moving towards the door with the Lasat and the Human recruit close at his heels. “I have a shuttle there with supplies we will need.”

“We’ll never get out on the shuttle,” Lorga complained. “They always lock down any - ”

“Shut your snout and move,” Jyn barked, and strode after the captain.

“They know what they’re doing,” she heard Sanduni whisper loudly to Lorga as they shuffled in behind, though she sounded more desperate than reassuring. “They’re soldiers.”

“We’re _not_."

“Lorga, in front,” Jyn ordered, though she dropped her voice as the captain cracked the door to the warehouse open. “Keep tabs on the captain’s team, twenty meter leash. Sanduni, stay close to her. I’ll be right behind you,” she tried to force something like comfort into the last words, because Sanduni’s lekku were shaking visibly now.

As her team slipped out into the night (“stay near the walls,” she hissed at her two recruits), she considered exchanging her new scarf for the old grey one. On the other hand, the old one was a light grey, while the new was a dark blue. The embroidery on the blue would make it more noticeable in daylight, but at night the dark color would blend better with the dark. The captain should have been relatively easy to find with his bright blue jacket, but somehow he had vanished entirely. Jyn caught occasional glimpses of Inkari’s bulk or Maddel’s blonde hair, but that was all. Lorga, on the other hand, was too absorbed in glaring at every shadow to hide herself well in them, and Sanduni… damn, Jyn needed to get her a dark cloak or something that would cover up all that cloth. Even before the invasion, the Twi’lek’s bright clothes were painfully eye-catching against the red and grey stone of Jedha; now, of course, they would be deadly. An hour ago, she would have blended into the festival crowd like a local, but Jyn had a feeling that was no longer true.

Lorga snarled, and Jyn reacted without thinking, lunging forward and tackling Sanduni to the ground behind a loading hoverlift. The woman yelped before Jyn slapped a palm over her mouth, but the sound at least served to drag Lorga’s attention back to her sergeant. She darted over and hunkered down next to them, and Jyn rolled off Sanduni and shoved her roughly at her teammate. “Stay,” she whispered at them both, and Sanduni clutched at Lorga’s hairy arm instinctively.

Jyn could hear the heavy tread of ‘troopers just around the corner ahead, but their cadence was off, not the rhythmic heartbeat of marching but an out-of-synch staccato. She pressed herself against the wall and peered around. She saw the officer first, a short, angry blond man with a chest like a barrel and the face of a petulant bully. He stood with his hands behind his back and a deep scowl etched on his face as he watched his troops critically. Half a dozen white-clad ‘troopers escorted another three, who between them struggled to carry a heavy grey and red box of some kind… _shit_ , it was a scanner, Jyn realized a moment late. They were scanning the warehouses, possibly for basic supply assessment, but those things worked for organic matter too. _Looking for refugees already, the slimy Imperial whelk-fuckers_. They definitely needed to get out of here.

The Imps were between her team and the broken fence, so they’d have to go around. If she was lucky, there wouldn’t be another scanning party in this part of the district – it would be inefficient to waste troops on this sort of thing when there was a whole city to terrorize, she thought bitterly. She slunk back to her huddled recruits and made a sharp gesture to Sanduni (she wasn’t entirely sure if Lorga had any night vision at all), and the Twi’lek followed her out from behind the hoverlift, lilac fingers still wrapped tightly around Lorga’s arm and dragging her along.

It took them ten minutes longer to get around the warehouse, and Jyn’s nerves were raw and tense as she strained to pick out any sign they’d been found or followed. But they made it to the broken piece of fence without interference, and Jyn sent Lorga over first to catch Sanduni as she hoisted the Twi’lek up. Jyn herself was over in a flash, and just as her feet hit the pavement she heard a soft hiss in her ear and realized that the captain was trying to comm her. “ _…-cation…serg….cepor…afe?”_

The signal was too weak, so faint she could barely make out his voice at all. They couldn’t be that far ahead, so that could only mean a comm jammer of some kind was active in the area. Of course the Imps are comm jamming the city, she scolded herself, shoving past her recruits and gesturing for them to follow as she fiddled with her ear piece. They’d probably told the most popular service carriers in this part of space to just switch off this whole system, too. She and the captain would have to be careful not to look like they were talking on comms, or they’d stand out to any watching ‘troopers. Alliance comm links (at least the ones given to lone operatives) had private boosters that could act as their own carriers in local networks, making them almost impossible to trace, but also weaker than the average link. With Imperial blockers, there was almost no chance she’d get through to him unless she did some serious impromptu upgrades on both their links. She tried anyway. “Team Leader, Team Two is in trail, clean, ETA thirty.”

No answer, although her comm did hiss again, once. Yes, she’d definitely have to boost their comm links, as soon as she found some spare wire and a few basic tools.

Of course, ideally, they would just get off this rock, but with the ports locked down they would have to find another solution.

Faint screaming from her left, and Jyn stopped her team behind a dumpster to listen. “Lorga,” she said softly. “Sweep. What do your senses tell you?” she clarified, reminding herself that the Shistavanen had no military training and wasn’t even technically in the Rebellion yet.

“There’s…there’s some people that way,” she started, but Jyn cut her off.

“Details, Lorga. Keep it short and sweet, but give me north, south, east, west, high, level, low. Rough estimation of distance in meters. Rough estimation of numbers.”

“Right, okay. I mean... yes, Sergeant.” Lorga snorted, then sniffed for a moment. “Okay. About…fifteen ‘troopers, down the south street, headed south. Same number to the east, not moving. Sounds like a big crowd to the south trying to escape the ‘troopers, moving away from us. Captain Sward and the other two went that w- went northwest. Not sure how far ahead they got, the smell is fading. Too much other shit in the air, sorry Sarge.”

“Good,” Jyn said shortly. “Nice mapping. Less apology.”

Lorga straightened her shaggy shoulders. “Yes, Sergeant.”

The grey pre-dawn light was creeping up the walls around them. Jyn clenched her jaw against the sudden yawn that ambushed her; it had been a full day since she’d woken in Yashfeen’s mech shop.

 _The mech shop_. Maybe...

“Captain,” she tried the comm again, “ _captain_.”

Nothing, not even the hiss of an attempted response. Jyn ran through half a dozen of her favorite curses and then shook it off. “Lorga, give Sanduni your jacket. Sanduni, use this to cover your head.” She thrust her tattered grey scarf at the Twi’lek, and then yanked her own blue one down around her neck and tucked as much of the embroidery into her collar as possible. Between the grey scarf and the Shistavanen's oversized dark jacket, Sanduni looked like a runaway adolescent, but at least she wasn’t as obvious. “Now move,” Jyn grunted, and led the way.

Above them, more dropships rained from the threatening overcast of the Destroyer, and more than once Jyn had to veer wildly off course to avoid the stamp of booted feet marching toward them. Lorga’s snarls grew quieter but longer as they moved, until it sounded almost like a continuous, furious purr in the back of her throat. Jyn let her, too busy plotting a course through the littered, dangerous streets. The colorful chalk _nafas_ were smeared across the empty streets and squat building walls, like a clubber's makeup after a wild bar crawl. Broken lanterns lay crumpled on top of piles of trampled flowers and shredded ribbons.  A torn drum rolled wretchedly down the gutter until it fetched up against someone's lost shoe. The growing grey light of the tentative dawn only made it all seem so much worse.

“You!” A mechanized voice cracked from the nearby cross street. Sanduni squealed, Lorga turned with her fangs already drawn, but Jyn was faster. She lowered her chin, pulled her truncheons (no blaster shots, nothing drew more ‘troopers to an area than blaster shots) and charged forward, ramming into the first of the four troopers with one shoulder. The ‘trooper stumbled back, and Jyn used her momentum to jump up and step down hard on his thigh, using it as a stair to put her level with his head. She brought her left truncheon straight down on his skull, and his body went limp. Her right arm lashed out and smashed the truncheon across the second ‘trooper’s faceplate, whipping his head to the side so hard his helmet skewed across his face. Both men went crashing to the ground in synch, and Jyn took care to aim her landing for the second one’s knee. His scream was oddly muffled by the twisted helmet, but the crunch of his joint was clear as crystal amid the startled shouts of the other two ‘troopers.

One of them caught her left wrist in a bruising grip, but Jyn swung her forearm down and around in a tight circle, breaking his hold and gaining enough momentum for her left truncheon to arc back upward and into his groin. The ‘trooper dropped to his knees with a choking gasp that the voice box warped into something sickeningly inhuman. The fourth ‘trooper drew his rifle and squared it at her chest, but Jyn was ready for that too, and she flung her right truncheon at his head. He reflexively threw up his arms (and consequentially, his rifle) to block it, and by the time it bounced harmlessly off his armored forearms, Jyn was in close with her switchblade drawn. _Stormtrooper armor is weak at the joints_ , Saw had drilled into her from the first week she’d been his, _but if you have a blade and the range, always go for the throat_.

The fourth ‘trooper collapsed at her feet, gurgling as drops of red spattered out from underneath the helmet edge. Jyn raised her truncheon and struck him again on the left side, squarely over the recording lens built into the helmet. The blow shattered the camera and the little data storage chip that kept the footage. The ‘trooper whose balls she’d crushed was still crawling on the ground, gasping too hard to call for help, so Jyn took out his helmet camera (and his skull) with one more heavy blow. The other two were unconscious, and Jyn smashed their cameras first, then knelt down and quietly slipped her blade into the soft black neck guard for both.

The whole thing took about two minutes, she estimated. Patrols tended to run about twenty minutes apart from one another, and if this one had checked in recently, she might have as many as thirty minutes before anyone noticed they were dead. Jyn wiped her blade clean on the black body suit on the inside of one ‘trooper’s elbow, then scooped up her discarded truncheon and signaled to her recruits.

“They’re dead,” Sanduni said in a small voice, staring at the white heaps on the ground.

Jyn grunted, checking through their gear for anything useful. Rifles were no good, they’d only draw attention. No rations or water jugs, and no tech equipment that wouldn’t light up like a Kyber crystal if anyone scanned them.

“But they were helpless,” Sanduni said in a shaky voice, looking at the two ‘troopers Jyn had killed last.

Shit. They didn’t have time for this. The captain was getting further ahead, and the streets were crawling with Imperials. And even if all three of them had rock-solid scandocs (they didn’t), they would still be kriffed.

“Lorga,” she snapped, “keep her moving. Let’s go.”

The Shistavanen shook herself like she’d just been splashed with water, the way she had in the warehouse after every training match. Then she put a hand on the quivering Twi’lek woman’s shoulder and tugged.

They ducked through alleys and behind trash piles and once, into an abandoned street cart covered in good luck charms and windchimes. The streets were almost entirely empty in this part of town now, and Jyn knew the longer they were outside, the more likely they would be picked up by ‘troopers. That was part of the invasion protocol – immediate curfew and lockdown, and anyone still out would be grabbed and imprisoned. It was an excellent way to crush any initial resistance, to weed out the defiant and the brave before the population had a chance to recover from the shock of arrival.

The space port came into view ahead of them. Jyn herded her recruits up a nearby fire escape and hunkered down at the first floor landing (stupid to go all the way to the roof, because all the shuttles flying overhead in rigid Imperial search patterns would spot them immediately). Jyn leaned out slightly and checked over the entrance: standard patrol unit of four ‘troopers by the gate. Another unit visible just inside the gate, clearly making circuits around the front of the port. At least two Imp shuttles squatted like fat toads on the largest visible landing pads, and a troop carrier was anchored in hover-mode overhead, doors wide open to what appeared to be an empty interior. If it had been full, there were at least fifty ‘troopers in the vicinity.

Her comm was still quiet, and she didn’t even know which shuttle belonged to the captain. “Lorga,” she asked quietly. “Can you pick up Team One?”

The Shistavanen shrugged. “I can smell all three, but can’t put a time on it. The Lasat went, uh, north, I think, but the humans – the captain and Maddel – they went through the front gate.”

Jyn bit back another round of curses, because now wasn’t the time. “Can you follow Inkari’s trail?”

“Yeah. Think so. Yes, Sarge.”

“Then take Sanduni and do it. Here,” she pulled out a small emergency locator, one that worked only within a few kilometers of any receiver, and synched it's frequency with her comm link. “This is so I can find you. Get to Inkari if possible, if not, find a place to hunker down. If you can’t, then find a small shop and break in. They usually have cellars, and the scanners have a hard time seeing through organic matter, so look for stacks of food or something to hide behind. Wait for me.”

“You’re leaving us?” Sanduni’s face twisted into panic, and her voice climbed into a small shrill. “Now?”

“Quiet,” Jyn snapped, but Lorga had already looped her arm around the Twi’lek’s shaking shoulders.

“It’s fine, Yvette,” she said in the softest tone Jyn had heard her gravely voice take yet. “Just stick with me. Sarge’s just going to get the captain. She’ll be back.”

“Take this,” Jyn handed off her blaster to Lorga, and then yanked her small derringer blaster from her boot and set it into Sanduni’s unresisting hand. “Move.”

Lorga didn’t wait for further command; she dropped Sanduni’s shoulders and grabbed her hand instead, and then they were down the fire escape and moving through the alleys towards the north.

If Maddel and the captain were captured, there was probably nothing Jyn could do about it. If she got captured going after them, there would be no rescue. _Cut your losses_ warred with _I don’t like leaving people behind_ , and then, despite her best efforts not to hear it, _I feel like I know you_ whispered in her ear.

Jyn reached up beneath the starry scarf, touched her fingertips to the crystal that lay warm against her throat, and took a deep breath.

 _I am in such deep shit_ , she thought.

And then she started to climb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“In silence I see the grey-clothed…”_ is a paraphrase of something written by the (human) poet Dylan Thomas, in his [Letters](https://books.google.com/books?id=r2MBBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=poem+about+invasion&source=bl&ots=Ko7ruW9-uj&sig=etrNowk72c-6xnYMLYcpCk2NSVs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiomoyxjqvWAhUp34MKHVCaB8kQ6AEIYjAM#v=onepage&q=poem%20about%20invasion&f=false) during World War II. It’s not actually a poem, but there was something very poetic and fitting about it, nonetheless.
> 
> There is no canon description of the [Lasat](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lasat) native tongue, so I based them off Croatian, because I’m in the middle of my research for another story on that and I’ve got it on the brain. Inkari calls Sanduni “seamstress” as a reference to her skill with a needle, because I’m not great at nicknames.
> 
> Just in case it is unclear, I headcanon that everyone in Star Wars has two pieces to their comm – the handheld bit where they can program in frequencies and talk like a microphone if they need extra-clear communication, and the transmit/receive earpiece (a little like a space!bluetooth) which is how they hear without everyone in a twenty foot radius listening in on their conversation. Cassian and Jyn of course noticed that the other didn’t have a standard off-the shelf comm (like the Star Wars version of the newest iphone), but when you don’t live on a Core World, that’s probably not too uncommon. The recruits don’t have comms, because they were told not to show up with their old stuff (like modern phones can be traced to their owners, Star Wars comms can probably be tracked by whatever carrier server they were registered to). 
> 
> ETA = Estimated Time of Arrival (so "ETA thirty" = "I'll meet you at the designated point in thirty minutes")
> 
> A [Derringer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derringer) is a tiny weapon with only a couple shots in it. Jyn’s boot blaster is basically this, with roughly five available shots. Not enough to pierce ‘trooper armor unless it goes through the eye or neck, but better than nothing.
> 
> (Also, I will explain the Twi'lek with withered lekku, for those of you who haven't already figured it out. Just not yet.)


	9. Captain (Part II)

 

 _Patience is not the ability to wait_ , Jyn recited to herself (trying not to hear it in Saw’s gruff tones), _it is the ability to strike at the right time_. It didn't make the waiting any easier, of course, but it was a comforting mantra.

Jyn huddled down under the bird hutch and waited for the latest patrol shuttle to pass overhead. She’d been tucked under the crude hutch on the closest rooftop to the spaceport walls as she could get for about twenty minutes, counting ground units and patrol shuttles. The downside of Imperial rigidity and mad passion for efficiency was that it made them extremely predictable, even on Day One of a major offensive maneuver. Well, a downside for _them;_ for Jyn it was a fucking blessing and she planned to exploit the hell out of it. Another ten minutes or so and she’d know exactly how often the ground patrols passed under her building, how many shuttles passed overhead per hour, and even how often she could expect a bio-scan to be initiated in the space port. True, the bird hutch wasn’t exactly comfortable, and it smelled a bit like dirty feathers and crap, but she’d been in worse places under worse circumstances for significantly longer periods of time. In all honesty, very little about her current situation was all that unusual in Jyn’s life – she’d been stranded alone behind enemy lines with no way out more than once.

No, the only weird bit about all this was the lone bird that had woken up when Jyn slipped into its space and eyed her sleepily from its little perch. She’d eyed it right back, noting the small but sharp talons and the long, lashing tail. Jyn’s knowledge of birds extended to how she could cook them over an open fire in the wilderness if rations were unavailable, but this one looked vaguely familiar. Some kind of pet she’d seen before, maybe – with those talons she would have assumed “attack bird,” but it was a bit…fluffy for a fierce guardian beast. And after it had regarded her for a long moment when she’d first arrived, the thing’s feathery little cheeks had puffed up and it had wagged its tail and…smiled at her.

That was ridiculous. Birds didn’t smile. Did they?

“I don’t have time for this shit,” she grumbled at it. The fluffy little menace puffed its cheeks again, it’s whole face curving into what definitely looked like a cheery little grin. Jyn glowered, and shuffled slightly away. Outside, another engine whined, and Jyn added it to her mental patrol count. Another few minutes and she’d have the pattern.

The bird ruffled its wings as the patrol ship’s engine’s roared directly overhead, then turned back to Jyn with a bewildered expression. “Don’t look at me, Feather-brain” she snapped. “I didn’t invite them.”

Again the little cheeks puffed up, and Jyn rolled her eyes and took stock of her situation. The Empire had invaded, her captain was missing, her recruits were scattered, and just to top it off, a stupidly fluffy bird was laughing at her.

“Not my best day,” she told Fluff-butt.

A patrol unit marched by between the building and the spaceport fence, and Jyn tallied up the final numbers. She had approximately fifteen minutes until another went by on the outside of the fence, which meant about eight minutes until a patrol passed along the inside of the fence. Five minutes until the next air patrol ship. The nearest landed shuttle on the other side of the fence was probably thirty meters away.

She could manage that.

She glanced at her battered chrono and marked the time.

The bird gave a soft, fluttery warble, and smiled at her again. Jyn blinked at it, then sighed. _Oh, what the hell_. “Good luck to you too,” she said, and then swung out onto the edge of the building.

The gap between fence and rooftop was a good three meters – not an impossible distance, but not an easy hop. Jyn launched over it at a dead run, flinging her weight forward and tucking her feet up under her. She hit the top of the fence with her toes first, and tried not to shout when they slipped and dropped her hard against her chest on the fence top. She scrabbled to catch herself, hooking her arms over the rough red stone and slamming her booted toes into the cracks and crannies of the wall. Good thing these spaceports were too archaic to install anti-theft zappers, she thought irritably, gasping for breath and ignoring the ache in her arms as she heaved herself over. Four minutes until the next air patrol.

The spaceport was roughly ten meters straight down, a three-story drop. Jyn clung to the top of the wall and scanned the area… _there_ , roughly two meters down the wall, she finally saw what she needed (three and a half minutes until the air patrol passed overhead). Bracing her feet against the wall and walking hand over hand along the top, she shimmied her way to the left, checking over her shoulder for any passing Imperials who might have a sight line to her. Finally, she made it to her destination (three minutes until the air patrol), and without pausing to think about it, she let go of the edge and dropped to the small twist of rusty rebar sticking out of the wall, grabbing it with both hands. It creaked and started to pull free from the stone, but she let go before her full weight could settle on it and dropped again to a hanging sign advertising a popular fuel brand. The sign groaned and tilted forward, but Jyn swung her legs hard and used the momentum to fling herself forwards, hands and knees braced for a controlled crash into a pile of empty packing crates. The crate pile shuddered, but Jyn twisted at the hips and launched off again, this time falling onto a parked hoverlift that had been left raised about two meters from the ground. She landed on the very edge of the hoverlift platform, staggering slightly on the slick metal, and turned the weight shift into the final fall. She hit the ground hard, but rolled smoothly forward to disperse her momentum, and ended up in a crouch between the hoverlift and the wall (two and a half minutes until the air patrol).

Another quick visual scan to make sure the area was clear, and then Jyn bolted for the nearby parked spacecraft (some old solar sailor, though she didn’t know the model and probably couldn’t slice its security before a patrol came in and caught her). She made it to the ship and rolled under the belly of it with two minutes to spare, then low crawled to the opposite side and peered out at the port. At first glance, it appeared deserted. Seven spacecraft aside from the solar sailor were parked around the small pads, plus the two Imperial shuttles, both parked near the administration office. Jyn frowned; she’d thought to get into the office and look up Sward’s ship registry. Of course, there was no guarantee he was even registered as Joreth Sward. _Kriffing son of a bantha bitch_ , how was she going to find the damn man?

The comm link was a dangerous option, but at this point, she didn’t have many others. She raised her link as close to her mouth as she could and murmured, “Captain, zone, clean, sierra.”

A pause, then again, “Captain, please respond. Zone, clean, sierra.”

Nothing. Shite. And of course, now she didn’t know if anyone had picked up her broadcast, so she had to turn the karking thing completely off to avoid any Imperials tracing the signal. If he tried to call her now, she wouldn’t hear it.

Oh well. Calculated risk.

Jyn flicked off her comm and waited patiently as the air patrol roared by overhead, right on time (three minutes until the inner fence patrol walked by). Looked like she would have to make a physical search. Would he even be on his ship, assuming she found the right one without getting nabbed? Had the Imps picked him and Maddel up already? How the many hells had he planned to get his “supplies” out of here anyway?

No point in speculation, only one way to find out. She considered the possibility that she was currently lying directly under him, but the solar sailor was too…flashy for him. At least, she thought it would be... although that was based on, what, _three_ days of knowing him? (Three days and one night, but this was _not_ the time to think about _that_.)

Two minutes until the ground patrol. Jyn rolled out from under the solar sailor and crouched behind a low barrier near the landing pad, running hunched behind its cover until it ended and then sprinting for the next nearest ship, an old Corellian light freighter with its ramp hanging open. She dove under the ramp with one minute to go, and then lay there for a moment listening to the march of oncoming boots and mapping her route through the rest of the port. As soon as the patrol unit passed by (the invasion was four hours old at most, and already the patrols managed to look bored by their routine), she pulled herself up onto the ramp and slipped through the open cargo door. The ship looked empty, and Jyn decided to check out the cockpit before moving on…then an enraged voice roared _we already gave our scandocs, you hairless fuckers!_ in shyriiwook from somewhere near the bow of the ship, and Jyn turned sharply on her heel and bolted back out. Tangling with a territorial wookiee was absolutely not on her list of things to do today. She only had one and a half minutes until the next air patrol, but if the wookiee still smelled her laying under the freighter’s ramp, they might come out and start something. So Jyn took the lesser risk and dashed across the short gap between the freighter and the next ship, an old U-wing with a flaking paint job, praying the whole way that no Imperial glanced out of the nearby admin building and caught sight of her.

She made it, but only just, and rolled under the U-wing just as the whine of the air patrol ship split the air. Just in case the wookiee decided to follow up on the intrusion, she flicked her switchblade out and waited, watching the freighter door.

Nothing (twelve minutes until the next ground patrol, five until the next air patrol).

Jyn tucked away her blade but pulled free her right truncheon, because the U-wing was a lot smaller and if she met another pissed off owner, she wanted to be prepared. Then she edged out and slid up the side of the U-wing to the locked fuselage door. To her surprise, the lock had been modified, much better security than the factory-standard locks. Much better than a crappy old model like this should warrant, actually.

Jyn fished out her digital picks and went to work on the door, glancing over her shoulder every ten seconds or so as she hooked her datapad into the lock mechanism and sliced through the startlingly powerful code. Her first attempt failed miserably, short circuiting her datapad with a series of tiny sparks. “ _Copper worms to infest your rusty circuits_ ,” she growled at it in Huttese, and reset the connections (three minutes until air patrol). The second attempt looked like it would go through for a glorious second, but then, mystifyingly, the code somehow triggered an automatic self-diagnostic run, which of course cut her connection off again as the lock turned itself off for half a second and then back on again. “ _Your mother was a rotten corpse fucker_!” she hissed in Bocce this time (two minutes until air patrol).

The third attempt worked – for less than a second, and Jyn could already see the code reassembling itself as she threw the door open and rolled inside (twenty seconds until patrol) – but she didn’t need more than that, and the door automatically rolled shut behind her as she threw herself in, truncheon raised in a defensive block –

A cold, black hand wrapped around her neck, picked her up, and slammed her down onto her back on the metal floor. All the air left Jyn’s lungs in a rush, and her vision greyed out as pain shot through the back of her head and down her spine. Vaguely, she was aware of someone shouting and a mechanized voice responding somewhere far above her, but instinct kicked in and she lashed out with her feet, catching armored shins and knocking someone (something) askew. No time to check who or what, though, she rolled to the side and forced her protesting body upright, blinking rapidly to clear her eyes and willing her lungs to work. More noise, voices and a – _fuck, it was an Imperial security droid_ she was dead she was dead but she wasn’t going easy –

She crouched, truncheons in both hands, and threw herself forward, aiming for the knees and hoping to slide behind the monstrous killer droid to get at one of the few weak spots on its chassis, but a humanoid stepped in between with his arms out and Jyn dropped her chin to ram him head on _wait I know y–_

“Jyn!”

She wrenched her shoulder down at the last second, trying desperately to throw herself towards the deck rather than his throat, but she had no way to stop her momentum entirely. The move unbalanced her and she braced herself for a second hard landing, this time on her face – and then blinked, still wheezing, and her head suspended about thirty centimeters off the floor and something hard driving into her sternum.

It took a second for her brain to catch up.

He’d dropped to one knee and caught her around the middle, his shoulder digging into her chest and his arms tight around her waist. Jyn had flung both her truncheons away the moment she’d recognized him, and her flailing hands had tangled in the front of his jacket. Someone (Maddel) was standing in the U-wing cockpit, a blaster pointed uncertainly towards them, but most of Jyn’s attention was split between _he’s alive_ and –

“Droid,” she gasped, and tightened her grip on his jacket, prepared to roll them to the side and out of range of those vicious black talons.

“No, no, he’s a friendly,” the captain said, a little too loudly in her ear, “It’s okay, it’s okay, friendly.”

Jyn reared back her head and gaped at him. Her head rang from striking the deck, her back throbbed, and her lungs were still on fire, but the fucking droid was a _friendly?_

“Sorry, we don’t have our external cameras working,” he explained a little sheepishly, his voice dropping into a softer register now that he wasn’t trying to shout through her battle haze. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“Captain, I recommend you distance yourself from the intruder,” the droid said in that precise, snippy tone that Imps just loved programming into their giant killer robots. “My scans identify two combat-grade blades on her person, and she clearly has violent tendencies.”

“Only two?” he asked, amused, his arms still securely around her. One of his hands slid up to cup the back of her head, right where she’d hit. “Wait,” he murmured as she tried to pull away. “Let me check for injury, please.”

Jyn clenched her jaw and forced her breathing to even out, glaring over his shoulder at Maddel, who dropped the blaster at last and turned back into the cockpit, and at the droid, who simply loomed over them and stared at her. Sward tugged the hair tie from her bun with a gentle touch, but it still sent a sharp, dizzying pain through her skull, and Jyn had to close her eyes to fight the nausea for a moment. “Sorry, sorry, almost done,” he hummed in her ear, “Sorry about this.”

“Captain, please identify this individual,” the droid demanded as the captain combed her hair out carefully with his fingers and trailed his fingertips across the back of her head.

“Sergeant Hallik, our contact for the hand off,” the captain replied absently, probing gingerly at the bump already forming. “I told you about her, Kay. Ah, this is K2SO,” he explained to her. “He works with me.”

“Charming,” Jyn managed through grit teeth. She realized that she was still clinging to his jacket, her body tensed for a fight, and ordered herself to let go and pull away. But then he swept his hand from her head down her aching spine (“any cuts? let me see.”) and she stayed where she was, glaring at the droid over his shoulder. Well, it was just good medical sense. Someone had to check her for any damage that would impede their escape.

“If this is Sergeant Liana Hallik,” the droid said, creepy unblinking eyes focused on her face, “why did you call her ‘Jyn’?”

She couldn’t help it, she flinched at her name, and the move seemed to jolt through the captain too; he immediately moved his hands from her back to her elbows and pushed them both up to their feet, withdrawing as soon as Jyn was stable. He met Jyn’s startled look with a steady, reassuring gaze and said, “Kay, mark that name as classified, please.”

“Understood,” the droid acknowledged, and then with a whirr that sounded vaguely disapproving added, “I am recalculating the odds of successfully escaping this port with an additional member. Would you care to hear them?”

“Not right now,” Sward replied, turning towards the cockpit and gesturing to Jyn.

“They’re low,” the droid said almost sullenly.

Jyn narrowed her eyes and studied it for a moment, then followed the captain. “What was the plan?”

“Create a diversion near the administration building,” he gestured out the front viewport. In the co-pilot seat, Maddel was very intently examining an old, heavy blaster that had clearly been modified from stock issue. Jyn eyed the weapon as Maddel turned it over in her pretty, manicured hands. “I was just getting a draw on patrol patterns,” Sward was saying over Jyn’s shoulder. “Once I had that down, Kay was going to take Maddel to the side security gate, break the lock, and then follow your comm signal to find, well, you.”

“Comms aren’t working,” Jyn tapped her ear, staring at the carbon-scoring on the blaster’s oddly-shaped barrel. “We need a receiver boost, or a surge circuit.”

“I am equipped with customized Identify-Friend-or-Foe transmission hardware and high-grade built-in communications package,” the droid said, but Jyn turned her eyes to the captain and pretended she hadn’t heard. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she pointed at her throat, where she was almost certain a band of finger-shaped bruises were forming. He grimaced and shrugged one shoulder.

“Kay could follow even a weak signal in this jamming,” he conceded. “So long as your comm was active. But I do have some surge circuits, so we can fix our comms now.”

“So your droid gets Maddel out while you create a diversion. But how were _you_ going to get out?” Jyn crossed her arms and glared. In the copilot seat, Maddel peeked up at them through her eyelashes, then went back to poking at the blaster. Something about the damn thing was bothering Jyn, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe it was just the unfamiliar, awkward way that Maddel was handling it.

To her surprise, the captain flashed her a brief smile, not quite his painful Harmless Tourist fake grin, but not his real smile either. “Charm,” he said lightly. “And a bribe.”

“The likelihood that any Imperial combatant will accept a bribe on Day One of an invasion,” K2SO chimed in, “when a superior officer may be paying attention, is extremely low.”

Despite herself, Jyn agreed with the droid. She was still going to smash its faceplate, though, if he kept staring at her like that. “So what’s the plan now?” Before the captain could answer, however, Jyn’s brain finally pinged on why the blaster in Maddel’s hands was so unsettling. “Is that a CR-2? What’s wrong with the shocker?”

“With the what?” Maddel jumped at her tone and scowled at the blaster as if it were to blame. “I don’t know, Captain just handed it to me and said get used to the weight. I don’t even know how to get the safety off.”

Jyn stared at Sward. “Ah,” he said, looking slightly sheepish again. “I was just about to explain to her when we saw the lock alarm go off…”

“It doesn’t have a safety,” Jyn told the other woman bluntly.

Maddel froze, her face going slightly grey, and with great caution she pointed the barrel away from her own face. “Captain…?”

“This is an older blaster,” he said quickly, shifting to stand over Maddel, a move that nearly pressed his side against Jyn’s. She stepped away quickly, and caught the droid’s optical lenses refocusing once, in and out again, then settling back to their normal unblinking stare. “The CR-2 can fire charged plasma bursts on this setting,” he reached down and clicked a little knob on the side, “and on this one, it fires a stun charge. It normally only works on organics, but I’ve…modified it to work on most droids and larger electronic devices, too.”

“Like Imperial security droids?” Jyn asked in her most innocent voice.

“Of course. It takes significantly more power to incapacitate my model than it does to incapacitate a human,” Kay replied primly. “Especially one of your stature,” he added with a definite note of self-satisfaction. Jyn glared at him.

“Questions of…hardiness aside, may I ask where the other recruits are, Sergeant?” the captain cut in dryly. “Did you bunker them down somewhere?”

“I sent them to track down Inkari,” she reported. “They are both armed – whether or not that does them any good.”

“Your DC-15 and your Derringer,” he said softly, glancing at her empty holster.

Jyn nodded. “And Inkari has your A280?”

“Yes. But I have a backup onboard.”

Jyn turned and gave the small ship a sweeping look. “Did you get all the supplies you needed here?” She blinked at his suddenly blank look, and then rolled her eyes. “The droid. You came here for the droid.”

“I am an extremely useful companion in the event of sudden Imperial invasion,” Kay told her righteously.

“There are also weapons on board,” the captain said carefully. “Some blasters, a grenade belt. But mostly, yes. I needed to get Kay out of here.” His lips thinned and he leaned towards Jyn and away from Maddel, who was now eyeing the blaster in her hands like it was a sheecas-snake, or maybe a grenade. “I would have sent _her_ off, too,” he said in a low voice, just for Jyn’s ears. “But she followed me up to the gate and I couldn’t rebuke her in front of the guard without causing suspicion. I didn’t want to risk any of you on this.” His eyes darkened. “You should not have come, Jyn. It isn’t safe.”

She was _not_ going to blush at his proximity, damn it. Especially not with a raw recruit sitting half a meter away and a towering security droid staring holes into her from even closer. “I don’t leave people behind,” she said flatly, and turned her face away to end the conversation. “So we still need a diversion. I say we boost our comms, load up any weapons, then chuck a grenade at the admin and run for that side gate.”

“The grenade belt is in that locker. Give me your comm,” he gestured to her ear, and she dropped the earpiece and her handheld into his palm. “I’ll get this done, you give Maddel a few, ah, pointers,” he jerked his head at the blaster in the recruit’s lap.

Jyn did not roll her eyes, but it was a close thing. The CR-2 was not exactly as _easy_ weapon to handle, even for someone who had spent her life around weapons. She met Maddel’s eyes, and despite the uncertain hunch in the other woman’s shoulders and the ginger way she held the blaster, the woman's jaw was set and her eyes determined. Jyn gestured and led her back to the empty passenger bay. “Like this,” she cupped her hands in the correct grip, one supporting the other, and waited until Maddel copied the hold on the pistol grip. “Make sure it’s on plasma, not shock,” she admonished, noting the switch position. “If you hold it like that in close combat you’ll probably get shocked too.”

“Shouldn’t I just give this to you?” Maddel frowned at the heavy weapon. “I can just throw grenades or something.”

“Have you carried frag or concussion grenades before?”

Maddel stared at her. “I was a city planner. I carried blueprints.”

Jyn gave Maddel her best Sergeant Stare. “So you don’t know the radius of fragmentation, or what secondary explosions you might trigger with a concussion, _or_ how to calculate wind angle on a smoker?”

Maddel dropped her eyes. “No,” she said. “No, _Sergeant_ ,” she added a touch defiantly.

“Aim for the middle of the chest, not the head,” Jyn advised, raising her hands in a mock grip and waiting for Maddel to copy her with the blaster again. “Center of mass is easier to hit, and it does the job just as well as any head shot. Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it. And take a breath between each shot. It will help you re-center your aim.”

“Here,” Sward said a moment later, handing Jyn her comm back along with another blaster, the DL-44 model preferred by Inner Rim smugglers and spice-runners, also modified with a larger ammo slot and a significantly nicer scope than factory-standard. He had another A280 slung around his hips, and she caught a glimpse of a barrel extension tucked into the holster under his jacket. His fancy modified sniper scope was clipped to his belt again. Jyn raised her eyebrow at him but tucked the modded DL-44 away without comment. His lip twitched at her expression, but he turned to Maddel. “Kay and I will head toward the admin building, to see if we can draw away the ground patrol. Sergeant Hallik will take you to the security door. Once you’re out, rendezvous with the others, and Kay and I will follow as soon - ”

“Incoming hostiles,” the droid buzzed abruptly, and Jyn snatched the grenade belt from the captain’s free hand and slapped it around her waist, moving to take cover by the closed bay door with her truncheon in one hand and blaster in the other. “I do not mean this ship,” K2SO amended. “I am monitoring the spaceport communications channels - ”

“Kay,” the captain snapped from his position on the opposite side of the door, Maddel standing uncertainly behind him. “Report.”

“Patrol unit 74F-Red reports an unauthorized speeder moving through nearby streets, apparently headed for this spaceport’s main gate. Multiple other speeders have been reported near other locked down ports, two have already rammed into the gates. Patrols are converging on the main gate here.”

Jyn’s guts twisted. “Other spaceports?” she demanded, tilting her head back to look the droid in the face. “What about communication spots, uh, transmission towers, local broadcast stations - anywhere the Imps have set up comms?"

“Sergeant?” The captain’s voice was calm but his eyes were intent on her.

“Thirty seconds until the speeder impacts the gates,” Kay informed them, and outside they heard the distant sound of blasters discharging. “And yes, multiple incoming reports of single-sentient attacks on various communication and transportation hubs for the invading forces. It appears that someone - ”

A muffled **_boom!_** sounded from the direction of the main gate.

“ – is launching a counter offensive,” Kay finished.

“Chaos strike,” Jyn muttered without thinking, then took a deep breath and looked the captain dead in the eye. “Are they ours?”

His eyes widened in shock. Behind him, Maddel furrowed her brow in confusion. “Why would _he_ know?”

“Because he’s an Intelligence agent,” Jyn said softly, not looking away. “If the Alliance knew this invasion was coming, they would have put people in place already, and he’d have known.”

“ _If they knew_ _\- !_ ” Maddel didn’t quite squawk with outrage, but her voice definitely rose into a higher register. The captain cut her off with a curt motion, but kept his gaze locked on Jyn. Outside, the sound of blasters intensified, and more boots pounded heavily past the U-wing, running for the main gate.

“We have approximately ten minutes before the Imperials lock down this space port and begin sweeping ships for life forms,” Kay said into the quiet. “Our scandocs are in order, but Recruit Maddel and Sergeant Hallik will be detained.”

He still said nothing, and Jyn glowered at him. “Of course you're a spy,” she said shortly. "You're a natural sniper," she explained clumsily, remembering how he'd scanned the sight lines of every place they'd been together. "And you lie easy as breathing." As soon as those words were out of her mouth, she knew they were the wrong ones. He didn’t flinch, but his face went completely emotionless, which told her that though she hadn’t meant it to be a blow, he’d taken it like one. But she couldn't think of a better way to mention his fake smiles without giving away how she felt about them, so she shut her mouth stubbornly and waited for his response.

“No,” he said at last, after a long, painful wait. “To my knowledge, the Alliance was not prepared for this.”

 _Damn_ , Jyn thought. _Damn it to all the karking hells._

He sounded distant, almost cold as he spoke again. "Is that what you wanted to hear, Sergeant?"

She scowled at her boots. She would have preferred it if the Alliance had just sent her to a hot zone without warning to the unpleasant alternative now staring her in the face. “It’s called a coordinated chaos strike,” Jyn said aloud. “Target the spaceports and the comm hubs, a single attacker at each location, cause the maximum damage, then scatter. Speeders as improvised missiles is a standard trick.”

“Guerilla tactics,” he agreed. “Could be any number of resistance groups.”

“No,” Jyn shook her head, and the thunder of another explosion rattled the metal deck beneath their feet. “Not many would dare try a chaos strike on Day One. Too many unknowns, risks are too high, and you’ll always lose a lot of people no matter how successful.”

His eyes were shuttered now, his voice devoid of any emotion. She’d made him cautious and uncertain again. Yet he still moved close, eyes scanning her like he was trying to solve a puzzle or perhaps looking for an open wound. “Who would, then?”

“That Twi’lek that followed us,” Jyn reached up and gripped her kyber under her scarf. “I’ve seen him before, years ago. He had just joined when I…”

“Seven minutes until Imperial capture,” Kay said dispassionately.

The captain was standing very close now, his face still closed off but his hand hovering just a few centimeters from her elbow. “Jyn,” he said so quietly that she could barely hear it. “Who is it?”

“Saw Gerrera,” she told him, staring at his chest. “The Partisans are here.”

Kay was the first to break the small silence. “How can you identify - ”

“We need to go,” the captain said abruptly. “The fight at the gate is our distraction. We make for the secondary security gate and meet our recruits at the rendezvous point I set with Inkari.”

“Security gate is too far,” Jyn said in a cracked voice. She stopped, swallowed hard, and continued. “Imps will already be locking it down.”

“How did _you_ get in, Sergeant?” Maddel asked tentatively. “Maybe we can go that way?”

“I jumped over the fence,” Jyn said shortly. “Not viable.”

“Jumped?” Maddel repeated in a faint voice, turning to stare out of the front viewport at the smooth, ten meter high wall just visible from the U-wing.

“Maddel,” the captain set his hand on her shoulder to refocus her attention. “This is a standard Republic-era public transport station that operates with local tower air traffic control. Are you familiar with the layout?”

The recruit startled, then tilted her head, obviously running through some mental roster. “Yes,” she said after a moment, and then more confidently, “Yes, sir, I’ve renovated more than one. There’s…the pressure coils!” She clapped her hands together suddenly, one short sharp _smack,_ and then turned and pointed towards the administrative building. “These landing pads have pressure coils built under each one to prevent constant stress ruptures of the underground fuel pipes and power cables. Maintenance workers crawl through them routinely to check that the coils aren’t damaged. They have access panels in the admin center and along the outside walls. Safety regulations,” she added, in the face of Jyn’s frown. “Regulations – Imperial regulations, I mean – require ports to close off the external access points, but most maintenance workers clear them open again, because the only thing worse than crawling through those little tunnels is having to crawl back the way you came, _backwards_.”

Jyn glanced up at the captain, waiting. Slowly, he reached out and tugged the edge of her scarf ( _his_ scarf, warm and soft and bright with stars) down to cover the kyber crystal that was still a little visible against her collar. “Let’s go,” he said simply.

“With me, Maddel,” Jyn said shortly, holstering her blaster and waiting until Maddel did the same. “The captain and his droid will follow us. You need to show me where the panels are. Stay close to me, take cover when I do, and if I tell you to run, you _run_.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Maddel replied, and Jyn was vaguely pleased to hear that the fashionable Core world city planner’s voice only shook slightly as she prepared to run into a possible fire fight.

 “Sergeant,” the captain said behind her. Jyn looked back over her shoulder at him, and saw the edges of his careful indifference fraying in the tight press of his mouth, the hard set of his shoulders, and the unhappy lines around his eyes. “Keep your comm on,” he said.

Jyn nodded once, and then the door slid open and she led Maddel out into the space port.

The light freighter on the next pad over had closed its ramp. The solar sailor was listing to the side, clearly knocked askew by the blast from the main gate. Roughly a dozen ‘troopers clustered near the main gate, shooting out into the street over the wreckage of the gate and a crashed speeder. Two air patrol ships screamed by overhead, but they seemed intent on the attacking force and passed without opening fire.

The air was thick with haze; a black column of smoke and fire belched from the main gate. Some of the smoke was the dirty grey color of an electrical fire, pouring from one of the small lambda shuttles near the admin building. Someone had tossed a melter grenade into the Imperial shuttle, Jyn realized. _Shit_ , the smoke from a melter was chemically designed to fry out electronics and flash-melt plastics, but it could still dissolve organic lungs (and eyes) for a long time afterwards.

Jyn grabbed Maddel’s shirt and shoved her hard to the side. “Long way ‘round,” she barked. “Cover your mouth, avoid the smoke.” She tugged her scarf up around her face and ran to the left, towards the stormtroopers but away from the grey smoke. The ‘troopers were still focused forward, and probably wouldn’t look behind them so long as no one fired on them.

Behind her, Maddel panted through her thick green scarf, the droid clanked heavily as it trotted along, and the captain ran silently through the haze with one hand on his blaster. “There!” Maddel’s voice was thin and strained, but she jabbed a finger at the admin’s side door, and before Jyn could reach for her lockpicks, the captain was there with his own set, jamming a decoder pick into the lock pad. The door slid open with a protesting squeal, but Jyn darted through before he could, truncheons both out.

There were two ‘troopers just inside the door, bent over a console. Jyn struck them both hard on the back of the skull, fracturing their helmets and dropping them like sacks. “Kay, close the door and lock down this building,” the captain ordered, kneeling beside the bodies and looting their utility belts for grenades and ammo packs.

“Wait,” Jyn snagged a newly-acquired smoker grenade from the captain's hand and launched it through the open door towards the ‘troopers at the main gate. It was too far for a perfect throw, but the smoker bounced to within a few meters and exploded in a choking cloud of sickly green fog. The 'trooper helmets would protect them from the pepper-spray in the smoke, but the obscuring fog would at least prevent them from turning and running straight back at the building when they noticed the lockdown. “Now close it!”

The door snapped shut, the captain stood up and drew his pistol and the extender barrel. With a practiced snap, he locked them together and the pistol transformed into an assault rifle. A280-CFE, Jyn realized belatedly. Standard covert field edition of an already versatile weapon. _See_ , _I knew you were intel,_ she thought at him, but there was no time to speak. He was already halfway up the stairs that led to the control tower. “Stay with the droid,” she ordered Maddel. “Guard the door.” And then she bolted up after him, swapping her truncheons for the blaster.

He rounded the top the stairs and vanished through the door into the control room when Jyn was still five steps behind him, and she heard a shot – no, _three_ shots, executed so close together she could barely extinguish them – and then Jyn burst into the tower room. Two ‘troopers and an officer were on the floor, each with a neat burn hole in their heads. The captain was at the control panel, flipping a series of switches until a loud alarm began to blare. Fire alarm, Jyn realized – he’d triggered the port-wide alarm, which would lock all shuttles down, activate the fire suppressant foam over the landing pads, and automatically direct all air traffic out of the overhead air space. Jyn glanced out the wide windows that ran around the entire room, and saw the ‘troopers stumbling and falling under the sudden deluge of slippery fire-foam that coated everything. He’d probably just bought them twenty minutes, maybe more.

Jyn glanced at the bodies in the tower again, then met his eyes. He looked apprehensive, like he expected her to be upset at how easily he’d killed them. She simply looked at him for a brief, quiet moment, then turned and headed toward the stairs. When she ran back down, he was right on her heels.

“Panels,” he yelled over the blaring alarm to Maddel. The recruit bit her lip, and pointed to what looked like a blank wall to Jyn. Fortunately, the droid seemed to know what she meant, because he strode over and slammed his metal hands into the metal paneling. It buckled and screeched as he gripped, then tore it free. Behind was a cramped, dark corridor that would require even Jyn to bend almost in half. She had no idea how the captain or the droid were going to get through, but there wasn’t much choice.

“Sergeant, take point, Maddel behind her,” the captain snapped. “Kay, behind me.”

“I calculate seventeen minutes until hostile forces are able to access this building. It is highly likely they will discover this open panel and send troops to the exit.” His electronic voice echoed oddly in the tunnel behind Jyn, as the alarms became muffled by the metal walls closing in.

“Then we better move fast,” the captain said in a slightly strained voice. The ceiling was sloping sharply down, and metal pipes and thick cables running across the walls and floor made it feel even smaller.

“We’ll have to crawl soon,” Maddel gasped, still clearly struggling to get her breath, and her bearings. “Uh, left there, Sergeant. Then another left, and it should be a straight shot to the exit.”

Jyn didn’t answer, she simply dropped to her knees and began to crawl. Behind her, Maddel did the same, and distantly she heard the clanking of the droid reconfiguring it’s limbs to crawl as well. It was getting progressively darker in the tunnels, until only the dim red running lights every few meters lit up the claustrophobic space. The pipes forced her head down and she had to mostly feel her way through the darkness. She could still hear blaster fire and the occasional thunder of a small explosion, but down here it suddenly seemed disconnected and unreal, a holofilm left on in the next room, a distant dream of battle. In the silence, her breathing was too loud and harsh. Her hands felt clammy and numb, her back and head ached from the body slam and the awkward angle, and her heart was thumping way too fast for the slow pace of her crawl.

 _This is not the cave_ , she told herself fiercely. _It’s not like the cave at all_.

For one thing, someone else was in there with her. And if she had a kriffing panic attack right now, she’d condemn the lot of them to death or worse. _Get a grip, Sergeant Erso_ , she commanded her treacherous body. _Get a grip, and get out_.

Later, Jyn would judge that they hadn’t been in the maintenance tunnels for longer than fifteen minutes, at the most. Later, she would guess that of the four of them, she’d probably had the most room, the easiest time finding her way, the most light without other bodies blocking her line of vision.

At the time, it felt like an interminable hell – a long, slow crawl through darkness and pain and the cold memory of staring at her mother’s flickering lamp while the horror of her parents’ deaths closed in around her.

At last, Maddel called “this is it!” and Jyn saw the faint outline of a small door embedded in the metal wall in front of her. She pried at it with numb hands, trying not to scrabble at it like a trapped rat, and she didn’t gasp out loud when her fingers finally found the latch but it was a near thing.

The hatch creaked reluctantly open on rusty hinges, but Jyn threw her shoulder hard against it until she was satisfied that the captain at least would be able to get through it. The droid was another story, but she had no more time or patience to think about it. She all but launched herself through it, out of the red-tinted shadows and into the bright morning light on the nearly empty streets of Jedha.

The fire fight was still happening somewhere around the corner of the space port wall, but it sounded more sporadic – the attacking Partisans must be withdrawing. There was nothing in this street but festival debris and the whistle of wind. All the same, Jyn pulled her blaster again and held it at the ready, concentrating on scanning the area and keeping her breathing calm and even as the rest of her team climbed out of the panel. Maddel still looked too pale, the droid had to pull himself through the frame with a nasty scrape of metal that left scratch marks down his black shoulders, and the captain…

He did a quick sweep of the street too, leaning his head back to check the fire escapes and catwalks above (and probably stretch out his neck, too), but then he turned and looked straight at her. Jyn jumped, not prepared for his scrutiny, still not fully recovered from the darkness or the assault of memory. “Alright, sergeant?”

The Infinite, Jyn thought with a flash of defensive anger and a touch of shame. He must have remembered how she’d acted in the Dome of Deliverance, latching on to him like a frightened child in the dark. Karking hells, he probably thought she had some phobia about the dark. “Good,” she said tightly.

He waited a beat, then said in a tone similar to her own, “Good. Let’s go.”

“The likelihood that your other recruits are alive and uncaptured is forty-three percent,” Kay informed them colorlessly. “The invasion is reaching a mature stage, and patrols and checkpoints are coming online across the city.”

“We need to find somewhere to lay low,” the captain agreed quietly, leading the way down the street, sticking close to the walls and scanning upwards often. Maddel crept along close behind him, her hands wrapped tight around her borrowed blaster. Jyn followed next, and the droid whirred behind her, buzzing periodically as his short-range scanners activated.

“I have an idea,” Jyn offered softly. “A place that might take us.”

He glanced back briefly, met her eyes, and then came to a sudden dead stop. Maddel made a surprised choking noise and just barely avoided running into his back. “Your sympathizer?”

Jyn nodded, bracing herself for what came next.

“No,” he said shortly.

“We don’t have a lot of options, _sir_ ,” Jyn frowned at him over Maddel’s shoulder.

“Putting ourselves at the mercy of an Imperial officer is not an option, _sergeant_.”

“He may not even be there anymore. They’re probably using him to run supplies or ‘troopers in. His mother is probably alone, and there’s space - ”

“You cannot be serious,” he snapped quietly, his back against the wall and his hands gripping his rifle so hard Jyn could see them turning white. “We can’t take that chance.”

“Do we have a _choice_?”

She could actually see his jaw click shut. Maddel stood between them with wide eyes, looking back and forth from his tight face to Jyn’s scowl.

“There is a seventy-two percent chance that an Imperial ground patrol will come down this street in the next thirty minutes,” Kay said.

Jyn closed her eyes for a moment, then turned her face up to him. “Trust me,” she said softly.

Something that looked almost like pain flashed across his face, then instantly smoothed out into his earlier indifferent mask. “Are we doing that now?” He sounded almost bored, leaning against the wall in an occupied city, rifle in his hands and ‘troopers bearing down at any minute.

 _The liar comment_ , Jyn thought a little regretfully. That must have struck deeper than she’d ever guessed. She hunted for the right words, but Maddel and Kay were staring at her and the streets weren’t safe. Finally, she dropped her eyes and looked away down the street. “I am,” she said, just barely above a whisper.

Another moment of silence, but Jyn didn’t dare look at him.

“Inkari is this way,” he said at last, and Jyn was relieved at how normal his voice sounded. “Hopefully the others made it to him.”

“Hopefully,” Jyn echoed under her breath.

“Another Partisan attack is being reported over Imperial comm channels,” the droid informed them. “Three blocks to the west.”

“Then we will go around to the east,” the captain said firmly, and led the way.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ivaylo made a soundtrack for this fic! It’s [here](http://crazy-fruit.tumblr.com/post/165475597652/accompanying-playlist-for-you-give-me-something), and it’s great! (Personal favs: “I was lost without you,” “gortoz a ran,” and “whispering to the stars,” but they’re all pretty cool.)
> 
> The smiling bird is a [Convor](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Convor), because they’re ridiculously cute. (And I can’t give Ivaylo a gift without a bird in it.)
> 
> “Zone, clean, sierra” = “I am in the designated zone/area/rendezvous point, no one is currently chasing me/aware of my presence, and I am standing by for further orders.” (“Sierra” = military phonetic word for the letter “S,” which in this case is for “standing by”)
> 
> The Twi’lek with the withered lekku that Jyn eventually recognizes/remembers is [Beezer Fortuna](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Beezer_Fortuna), who has something of a fascinating backstory given that we see him for approximately 0.4 seconds in the movie. So the question remains…why was he following Jyn? _Or was he?_


	10. Ally (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I thought we agreed, Sergeant, not to leave people behind.

 

“The positive element of this predicament,” the droid announced, “is that all of the remaining recruits are conveniently in one location. And alive,” he added after a beat.

“For now,” Jyn muttered, crouched behind the stone body of a large mynock statue positioned outside an upscale teashop. Maddel knelt on the red-stone street behind a second statue nearby, and the captain was leaning up against the side of the teashop itself, peering over Jyn’s head around the corner. Three buildings down the street, Jyn could just make out the distinct shape of Lorga’s ears through the cracked glass of a clothing shop. K2SO had done a short-range scan and noted the other two were also in the little shop, hunkered against the wall by the window.

On the other side of that wall, a ground patrol of four stormtroopers stood at semi-attention while an officer and his droid set up a checkpoint, complete with bio-scanner, in the middle of the street. They had roughly forty minutes before the checkpoint came online, more ‘troopers showed up, and the Imps cleared all the buildings within a two-block radius. They needed to get their recruits out, now.

“What kind of clanker is that?” Maddel whispered, peering through the stone mynock’s talons at the Imperial’s droid.

“RA-7,” the captain answered absently. “A type of protocol droid, except they aren’t as complex.” His mouth twisted in a faint expression of distaste. “Too much space devoted to spy cameras and scanners. It sends regular uploads to the Imperial Security Bureau, too.”

Jyn shuddered despite her best efforts to conceal her reaction. If that was true, then the very last thing any of them could afford to do was get scanned and filed by the spy-bot. The ISB had massive archives and probably not enough people to parse through them all that quickly. Still, the idea of the Imps having all their faces, voice records, and whatever biometric data the RA-7 would take from them was beyond acceptable.

Jyn caught the captain’s eye and saw him thinking the same thing. “No cover stories,” she said.

“We’ll have to go around,” he agreed. “There’s probably roof access.”

“The probability of getting inside that building and out again with all the additional people is exceedingly low,” Kay said.

“Then we get them to come to us,” Jyn shrugged. The others turned to look at her. “Draw out the Imps, the recruits make a run for it.” Jyn tapped her grenade belt meaningfully. “I’ll make the hit and run, you get the recruits.”

The captain’s lips pressed together. “Partisan tactics.”

He said it in a neutral tone, but Jyn felt his disapproval all the same. “If it _works_ ,” she growled, one hand clutching the grenade belt as she scowled at him.

“If it gets you _killed_ ,” he retorted.

“The likelihood of Sergeant Hallik’s death if she attacks the checkpoint is forty-seven percent,” Kay said.

 _Based on what?_ Jyn wanted to demand, but she grit her teeth and waited.

“Sergeant, go around to the next street,” the captain ordered. “See if you can climb that building and cross to the shop roof. Kay, stay here and inform me if this end of the street gets clogged. Thirty second scans every five minutes unless you detect Imperial frequency monitoring. Maddel, stay with Kay.”

“Where will you be?” She blurted it without thinking, mildly horrified with herself for wasting valuable time on stupid personal shit when their lives were in danger. If Saw could hear her now he’d knock her on her arse for idiocy, and automatically she felt her shoulders tense, her jaw clench, still braced for the blow almost five years later. Worse, his eyes tracked from her face to her clenched fists, so she knew he saw the reaction.

“Going high,” he said, pointing up at the tea shop roof. “I can provide recon and cover fire from there. You get _them_ ,” he jerked his head towards the clothing shop, “and get out through the roof. I’ll send you coordinates and we’ll meet again there.”

Jyn took a deep breath. “Alright,” she said slowly, because she didn’t like it, but if he wasn’t going to let her strike the checkpoint then this was the best idea they had. Belatedly she noticed that Maddel was watching her carefully, and Jyn straightened her shoulders and said, “On your mark, sir,” in a detached professional voice.

“Move out, Sergeant,” he replied dryly.

“Approximately thirty-two minutes until the checkpoint is online,” K2SO said as Jyn slipped away, back down the street and around the corner. “Would you like to know the odds that the sergeant will return unharmed?”

The captain answered in a low, tight voice, but Jyn was too far away and didn’t catch it.

She made it to the next block quickly, the only moving thing on these streets now. To her relief, the fire escape ladder was low enough that she could jump up and grab it without some lanky worrywart of an officer to yank it down for her. She climbed as quietly as she could, although her boots rang against the metal no matter what she did. Another relief – the gap between this building and the clothing shop was narrow enough for her to jump easily. And finally, thank the fucking Force, there was a small hatch leading down into the shop.

The lights were off in the upper story, and Jyn dropped down as carefully as she could. She left the hatch open, and then pushed a small table to rest just underneath it. When they bugged out of here, they might need to move fast, and she wanted everything as ready to aid their escape as possible.

She moved quietly to the top of the narrow stairs leading down into the shop, then whispered loudly, “It’s Sergeant Hallik. I’m coming down.” Probably unnecessary, given the Shistavanen’s sense of smell, but there was no point in taking the risk that they would jump her thinking she was an enemy sneaking up on them.

Sanduni met her at the bottom of the stairs, her lilac face still grey with stress and worry. “Sergeant!” She cried, and for a moment Jyn thought the Twi’lek was going to hug her again. She appeared to have raided the clothing shop; her embroidered cape and layered skirts were gone, replaced by plain grey trousers (that strained a bit around her generous hips) and a heavy brown shirt and oversized coat. It made her look even more washed out and colorless, and she clearly hated it, judging by the way she kept tugging at the rougher fabric. She refrained from hugging Jyn, at least, and instead she blurted, “Jak’s hurt!”

It took Jyn a second to remember that “Jak” was Inkari’s given name. “How bad?” She followed the Twi’lek into the shop front, hunching over to keep hidden behind the racks of clothing.

“I am still alive, Sergeant Hallik,” the Lasat said in his deep voice, sitting with his back against the wall near Lorga. The Shistavanen nodded curtly to Jyn, then went back to peering hatefully out the window at the nearby ‘troopers. Jyn slid over to Inkari as Sanduni hunkered down next to Lorga, reaching one shaking hand to grasp at the other woman’s jacket.

The Lasat allowed Jyn to push aside his thick black sweater and examine the knife wound in his side. Well, she thought with some resignation, it wasn’t lethal. At least, it wasn’t lethal if they got him medical attention soon and let him rest somewhere safe. Inkari had somehow sliced a jagged-edged blade across his ribs in a long, deep cut. It looked like someone – probably Sanduni, yes, there was dark purple blood under her nails – had sewn the ragged edges of the wound closed. The cut was relatively clean, but didn’t smell like bacta or antiseptic and it was unlikely Sanduni’s sewing kit was sterile, so he was at high risk for infection. She didn’t know how much blood he’d lost, but his purple skin looked almost as pale as the Twi’lek. “Who got close enough to stab you?” Jyn asked, hunting in her pockets for the small bacta gel tube she kept for small cuts and scrapes. It wouldn’t be enough, but it was better than nothing.

“Not a ‘trooper,” Lorga snorted.

Jyn raised an eyebrow at the bristling Shistavanen, who shook herself a little and went back to staring out at the Imperials. The fur on the back of her neck was still stiff, and she looked like she was a hair away from openly snarling at them. Sanduni’s hand tightened on her jacket, and Lorga visibly forced her ruff to go flat again, though her eyes stayed locked out the window.

“On my way here,” Inkari told her, “I encountered a small Bothan. He seemed lost, distressed.”

Jyn forced herself not to roll her eyes; she could already see where this was going.

“Always someone willing to take advantage of chaotic shit like this,” Lorga said with a derisive growl.

“Jak was trying to help,” Sanduni said in a small voice. “He was trying to help a boy in a war zone.”

“The kid steal anything when he stabbed you?” Jyn tried to keep her voice completely neutral, rubbing a small amount of bacta gel on the wound.

“A small credit chip. I was perhaps a touch too trusting,” Inkari said wanly. “But if in great matters, we show how we wish to be, in small matters, we show what we are.”

“ _The Prophet of Joy_ , by Gamaliel Bradford,” Sanduni said, and she and Inkari shared a small smile.

“Just so,” he nodded, clearly pleased. “A wise being.”

“The rest of the team is outside,” Jyn said briskly, putting away the bacta gel and glancing around the shop. “The captain has an Imperial security droid under his command,” she remembered to warn them, because the odds were good that Lorga would attack it on sight. “So don’t shoot it.”

“How will we know his droid from the rest?”

“We’re going to avoid tangling with any of them,” Jyn shrugged. “If we do, just follow my lead.” She looked at Inkari. “We need to move,” she said simply.

“Yes of course,” he grunted, leveraging himself carefully into a crouch. The movement clearly hurt, because sweat broke out on his forehead and he closed his eyes for a long moment.

“Jak?” Sanduni scooted gracelessly on her knees under the window sill until she reached the Lasat. “You okay?”

Jyn stepped back, watching her recruits from the corner of her eye as she shuffled through the nearest table loaded with clothing. There was nothing she could do – she wasn't familiar enough with his species to be sure, but usually when someone talked about honor like that, they didn't accept help readily. She tossed aside a stack of robes and found a pile of what looked like synth-leather coats. Quickly, she rifled through the pile, looking for something warmer than her thin sleeveless jacket.

“ _I asked a learned scholar, ‘Sir, how can I rise with honor?_ ’” Inkari murmured, his eyes still closed as he leaned heavily against the wall in his half-crouch. “ _And such was the master’s reply: ‘To rise up -_ ” he tried to push himself to his feet, groaned, and bent over, arms tight around his ribs. “ _To rise up_ ,” he began again, a little breathlessly.

“ _To rise up, live, love, fight, and die_ ,” Lorga snapped from the window.

Inkari’s eyes opened in surprise. Then he took a slow, controlled breath and forced himself upright. “Just so,” he said again. “Thank you.”

Jyn found a lightweight hunter-green jacket with a slightly ripped but still warm lining. Perfect. Quickly, she stripped off her sleeveless jacket, threw on the green coat, then put the vest back over it. She’d survive the Jedha nights much easier now.

She turned and gestured to her recruits, keeping a rack of clothing between herself and the window. She had about ten minutes left to extract her people from this place before the checkpoint came online. “Lorga, help Inkari. Sanduni, take rear guard, keep that blaster at the ready. You figure out the safety?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Sanduni said, hunting through her baggy shirt until she found what looked like a makeshift sling and pulling the Derringer free. She noticed Jyn’s line of sight on the sling. “Jak made me a holster.”

“Let’s go,” Jyn led the way to the stairs, keeping her head down as she moved. Behind her, Lorga growled a curse as she and Inkari were forced to hunch over almost double to keep low behind the racks. Inkari gave a terrible wheezing gasp as they leaned, then was silent save for labored breathing. Damn, she needed to get them somewhere safe, where they could rest. The lockdown wouldn’t last forever, not even the Imperials would be willing to burn that amount of time and resources. All they needed was a hole to hide in until the lockdown lifted and they could steal a ship – or maybe even make it back to the captain’s U wing. Assuming it was still there.

Karking hells, she didn’t have time for speculation. _One day at a time_ , _Erso,_ she reminded herself savagely. _First, we get out of here._ Slow and steady, wincing every time her recruits thumped against the wall or stomped too hard on the creaking steps, she led them up towards the hatch.

They were nearly at the top when something exploded outside the shop. The walls shook, something heavy fell over ahead of them, and behind them she heard the cracking of shattered glass as the window imploded.

“ _Oozing genital warts_ ,” she hissed in Bocce, and raced up the stairs. “ _Move,_ people!”

The recruits clattered behind her, any attempt at silence gone. Outside, the sound of blasters discharging mixed with someone screaming in…a familiar language she couldn't currently place. Not important, but if the checkpoint was under attack, it was probably the Partisans again. A chill raced up her back, but there was no time to think about it. She burst into the upper room, leapt up on the table and threw herself up to the hatch. It took only a moment to pull herself up, then she spun, dropped flat, and stretched her arms back down. “Let’s go, let’s go!” she barked over the whine of blaster fire.

Lorga shoved Inkari up towards her, the Lasat clenching his big teeth together and reaching for her hands. Jyn’s shoulders and back screamed with agony as his weight pulled on the bruises from her fall, but she snarled at the pain and heaved. Lorga pushed at Inkari’s legs, and the big man clumsily crawled onto the roof with Jyn. Over the blaster fire, Jyn heard the distant roar of an approaching air patrol. _Shavit,_ she had maybe two minutes to get everyone off the roof and maybe tucked into an alley or something. _I hope Sward’s not on the roof_ , she thought randomly, but there was no time to think about that either.

Lorga turned and latched on to Sanduni's arms, and Jyn reached back down despite her shrieking back to grab the Twi’lek’s hands. But Lorga simply yanked Sanduni onto her back and leapt from the floor straight up towards the ceiling. Her clawed hands dug into the edge of the hatch, and with a grunt she dragged both her own weight and the Twi’lek’s onto the roof. Sanduni dropped free as soon as Lorga was stable, and then both women darted forward without Jyn’s order to support Inkari.

“Ladder,” Jyn darted for the fire escape, pulling her blaster and preparing to kill any ‘troopers that popped up in front of her. The checkpoint had to have radioed for help, so it was highly likely ground units would appear at any moment. The air patrol droned louder, almost on top of them.

They all but fell down the fire escape, and Jyn leaped clear of the ladder at the bottom just in time to avoid being crushed by Lorga and Inkari, who dropped heavily enough to shake the windows of the nearby building.

“Captain, ready to RTB,” Jyn said into her comm.

“Standby,” he sounded almost sleepy, like he was relaxing in the nice sunshine on a damn beach. Jyn almost snapped back at him because she was definitely not in a position to hang about at his convenience, but through the comm she suddenly heard a blaster shot – no, two blaster shots, very close together – and then in a normal voice he said, “Coordinates incoming.”

Her comm buzzed, then a series of numbers flashed across the screen. Jyn took a second to memorize them, then deleted the message. “This way.”

He’d sent them to a cross street about four blocks from the checkpoint, one they could get to by passing entirely through back alleys. Jyn rounded the last corner cautiously, and there was the Imperial droid, standing just across the street and waiting for her. Maddel hovered just behind him, her blaster in hand. Just in case, Jyn raised her own blaster and pointed at the droid, but rather than lunge for her, he just said, “You seem to have survived. I am impressed,” in a flat, thoroughly unimpressed voice.

Jyn lowered her blaster and checked the street. Clear left, clear right. “Go,” she motioned for the recruits. “Cross. Go, quick.”

Lorga and Inkari made it without incident, but Sanduni was still in the open when Jyn heard the shout.

It was the same language she’d heard screamed before – Tognath, she realized suddenly, as she threw herself towards Sanduni. She was too far, though, and her stomach bottomed out as she saw the green flashes of blaster shots whizzing by her recruit’s head. Sanduni shrieked and dropped to the ground, her arms over her head, _no, no, get up, run for cover Force **damn** it!_

Maddel at least had the presence of mind to lean around the corner and return fire, although her shots were so wild it would be a miracle if she hit any of them. Jyn pulled her blaster and fired back with one hand without looking, pulling a grenade with her other hand. At the end of the street, she could just see the muzzle flash of three or four blasters peeking out around the corners of the buildings on either side of the street. One grenade wouldn’t be enough to kill all of them, but she could at least get them to stop fucking firing on her people.

Sanduni shrieked again as a bolt singed past her lekku. Too far, Jyn was too far and the grenade was warming up in her hand with a whine but it would take too long - Lorga snarled and dropped Inkari in the alley, and darted back out into the street. In slow motion, Jyn saw the blaster fire concentrate on this new, larger target. Lorga wrapped her long arms around Sanduni, heaved her up, and turned to dash back into the alley, but a bolt struck her leg and they both went down hard.

Jyn hurled the frag grenade at the right-most building and dashed the rest of the distance between herself and her downed recruits. The explosion stopped the blaster fire for a moment, but then it started almost immediately up again – _nim gar troac varbeck_ she must have either missed, or there were more out there than expected. But suddenly K2SO was there, clamping his metal hands around Lorga’s shoulders and hauling her upright, ignoring the woman’s vicious snarl. Jyn grabbed at Sanduni, and together they stumbled into the shelter of the alley. Jyn passed the shaking Twi’lek to Maddel, who awkwardly patted her back as she clung to Maddel’s arm.

“We appear to be trapped,” Kay informed her calmly. “There is no other exit except through Partisan fire.”

Jyn looked up at the fire escape desperately, but they were all empty. “The captain is still in position near the checkpoint, and likely unable to move without revealing his sniper nest to the air patrols,” Kay said, correctly interpreting her search. “He left me instructions to collect you and take you to a secondary rendezvous point.”

“But we’re trapped!” Sanduni gasped. Despite her hysterical tone, however, Jyn noticed that she already wrapping a torn piece of cloth around Lorga’s leg, a task made difficult by her shaking hands.

“Follow the captain’s orders,” she told the droid. “You lot, stick with K2SO, and listen to what he says. He’s more experienced in combat than any of you.”

Lorga was panting heavily and her fur was sticking almost straight up, but she still somehow managed to find the energy to throw her hands up in mocking despair. “Where are you going _now_?”

“To save your hairy arse, recruit,” Jyn snarled right back. “Stay together, listen to Kay, and I’ll see you at the rendezvous.”

“Sergeant,” the Lasat said in his deep serious voice. Jyn met his eyes. “May the Force be with you.”

Jyn nodded. Then she marched to the entrance of the alley, primed another frag grenade, and hurled it at the Partisans. Another pause after the explosion, but before they could start shooting again she bellowed, “ _Take me to Saw Gerrera!”_

She waited in the silence that followed, counting off in her head. If she got to a full minute, she’d go out and see if they were all dead.

Twenty-seven seconds in, she heard a Tognath yell, _Who asks for Saw Gerrera?_

“The daughter of Galen and Lyra,” she shouted back. That ought to be specific enough for Saw without giving away anything to the rest of the world. She hoped.

Another long pause, and then a higher voice shouted something back in a language she didn’t understand. Behind her, Sanduni gasped. Jyn looked back at her. “That’s Twi’leki,” she explained. “Um, he said, he said ‘come out and face us,'” she bit her lip, and then said, “and, um, he called you ‘lost child of Saw.’”

A mix of rage, pain, and a desperate sort of fear surged up in Jyn’s chest. But four (no, five) faces stared across at her in the alley, and she swallowed it down again.

“Cease fire,” she called. “I’m coming out.”

“The odds of your survival - ”

“No choice.” She holstered her blaster, and stepped smartly out into the street, her hands up. No point in moving slow, the Imperials would be scrubbing these streets looking for whomever had bombed the checkpoint, and they needed to move. “Let my people leave,” she said loudly as she approached, pausing a few meters away from their position. “Or I’ll detonate this grenade belt and kill all of you.”

“Agreed,” the high-pitched Twi’lek voice called back after a moment.

“ _Go,”_ she shouted behind her, and listened to the clank of the droid's steps and the more hesitant shuffle of her recruits as they vanished down the street. Then she moved forward again. The Partisans – four of them, although there was a body on the ground with his head partially shredded by a grenade – let her get within a meter before they swarmed her. The Tognath knocked her knees out from underneath her, and the Twi’lek with the withered lekku leaned down and stripped away her grenade belt. The third was a thin Human male, and the fourth a Human, gender indeterminate, both wearing heavy robes and both carrying nasty repeating cannons that slung over their backs.

Jyn grit her teeth and let them paw at her, because to fight back now would be suicide. The Twi’lek produced a pair of manacles that looked like he’d lifted them right off an Imperial prison guard, and Jyn bared her teeth but let him force the cuffs over her wrists and activate the clamp protocol. The metal bands cinched down tight enough to bruise, and the Twi’lek watched her face carefully for a reaction, but Jyn gave him nothing. The Partisan shrugged and stepped back, taking her blaster as he went.

 _Up_ , the Tognath growled through his breather, and gave her a hard shove in the back with his blaster barrel.

They hustled her through the streets, ducking through alleys as air patrols zoomed by, taking sharp turns to avoid the sounds of marching boots. Jyn considered making sarcastic remarks about their terrible navigation skills, or hunching her shoulders and pretending to be frightened, but ultimately discarded both strategies. Maybe kissing up, trying to get them to see her as a comrade returning home? She eyed the Tognath and rejected that strategy too. Maybe the Humans would go for it, potentially the Twi’lek (if he’s been watching her face for discomfort because he wanted to alleviate it rather than because he enjoyed it), but definitely not breather-boy. He looked like he was only _just_ refraining from murdering her on the spot.

Jyn was just debating whether or not she could pretend to fall and maybe get the jump on them when they tried to pull her up – when the male Human plummeted to the ground next to her. Jyn registered the sound of the shot afterwards, when she was already throwing herself down and rolling to the side to avoid follow on fire. The dead Human stared at her with blank eyes from the ground, a neat hole burned into his left temple. Jyn tore her eyes away and tried to roll up to her feet.

The Tognath, firing wildly up at the nearby roof, planted his boot on the back of her neck and smashed her down into the pavement. Jyn managed to throw her arms up and cushion her face before she ate gravel, but the fall knocked the breath from her lungs, and the Tognath’s metal-edged boot was slicing into the back of her neck.

And then suddenly it wasn’t. The Tognath crashed heavily into the dirt next to her, and she just had time to see that his right eye was burned almost completely away by a very precise shot. _He came back_ , Jyn thought inanely, because she was still absolutely in danger and probably going to die if she didn't get her shit together and get her ass off this street.

The other Human was still firing at the roof with their repeater cannon, and Jyn lowered her head and charged them, planting her shoulder in their gut and shoving as hard as she could. The Partisan went flying to the side, arms flailing, but another shot sang out and this time the hole appeared right in the middle of their forehead, between the eyes. The Human was dead before they ever hit the ground. Jyn spun, and just caught sight of the Twi’lek’s pale lekku vanishing around the far corner. She almost ran after him, but she spotted her blaster on the ground where he’s apparently thrown it and decided she had higher priorities. She swiped her blaster, grabbed her truncheons off the dead Tognath, and then darted into the nearby alley, struggling to get her breath back.

The captain dropped from the fire escape a moment later, rifle already dismantled and stowed. Jyn slotted her own blaster back into her holster and checked that her kyber crystal was still in place (which required her to shove aside the starry scarf – she was _not_ checking that the scarf itself was still there too, she wasn’t). “That was a risk,” she said, dropping her truncheons to the ground and raising her bound wrists to eye level, determinedly not looking at him. Damn, the lock was on the underside, where it would be difficult for her to angle the pick. “You should have taken the recruits and left me, Captain.”

Even to her own ears the words sounded bitter, and she frowned fiercely at the cuffs. The tips of her fingers were turning blue, she needed to get these fucking things _off_ –

“I thought we agreed, Sergeant,” he reached out and took her wrists gently, a pick already in one hand, aiming for the lock, “not to leave people behind.” With a soft click, the cuffs opened and Jyn hurled them away. A gruff voice in her head told her that it was foolish to throw away anything that might be useful against an enemy. Jyn snarled the most vicious curse she could think of back at Saw’s memory, and ignored it.

“I’m fine,” she said aloud, because the captain was looking her over, clearly checking for injury. “Bruises. More bruises.”

He didn’t look entirely convinced, but they could hear the rumble of Imperial machinery in the distance (tanks, Jyn thought with exasperation, they were already bringing in kriffing _tanks_ , clearly this invasion had been in the works for awhile).

“Inkari is injured,” Jyn told him, swiping her truncheons from the dirt and resettling them. “And Lorga,” she added, then grimaced. “Maybe Sanduni.”

“I know,” he settled his hand lightly on her back to lead her towards the other end of the alley. “I met up with them. I’ve got them hunkered down a few blocks over.”

He should have left her. He had everyone else, and they wouldn’t survive without at least one of their leaders. Since Jyn was gone, possibly dead, he should have stayed with them, not risked leaving them all leaderless in this forsaken Imperial mess. _You should have left me_ , she almost said again, but didn’t.

He stopped for a moment to let a ground patrol pass nearby, then said softly, with obvious effort, “You said you had somewhere to go?”

Jyn met his eyes – he still didn’t like it, she could tell, but at this point there really was no where else to go. “Yeah,” she said. “Not too far from here. A machine shop.”

“The recruits are just around the corner,” he nodded in the direction. “Let’s get them, and then you lead the way.”

“Sergeant!” Sanduni cried happily when they rounded the corner, way too loudly. Jyn glared, and the recruit immediately clamped her mouth shut. “Sorry,” she whispered. “But you made it!”

“The sergeant has a place for us,” the captain told them calmly, stepping forward and holding a hand out to Lorga.

Jyn crossed her arms. “On your feet, people,” she ordered. “We’ve got a kilometer of hostile territory to cross, and no time to lounge around anymore.”

“Lounge?” Lorga grumbled, allowing the captain to pull her up and then using Maddel as a crutch as she hobbled on her injured leg. Inkari took a moment longer to rise even with the captain's help, and leaned heavily on Kay, who somehow managed to look uncomfortable with the proximity despite his completely unchanged posture.

“Yes,” Jyn replied, leading them north. “No more napping in piles of laundry. Time to get serious.”

“ _Napping in -_ !”

“Easy, recruit,” the captain interrupted mildly, and Jyn wondered if she was the only one to hear the undercurrent of humor in his voice. “You heard the sergeant. Time to move.”

Considering their injured, and the irritatingly dense patrol pattern of the ‘troopers through the streets, they made it to Yashfeen’s home in relatively good time. All the colored lanterns were still hanging from the eaves, but none of them were lit any more. The nearby club was dark and silent, too, as were the other houses along the street. The Biscuit Baron, she noted with disgust, was lit up and apparently open, and the shapes of a few Imperial officers were sitting at the tables inside. Of course, everyone knew the Barons were owned by some Imperial Moff or whatever; couldn’t let a little thing like a full scale invasion interfere with _profits_.

 Jyn signaled to the captain to wait, and then slipped up to the side door again. The chalk pattern on the ground was smudged into an ugly mess of color, now more brown and grey than anything else. For some reason, the sight of the distorted flower and nearly erased star hit Jyn like a punch to the gut. _They light up the great Temple, and you can see the crystals from across the whole city_ , Yashfeen had said with a proud light in her eyes. _We used to dance and sing._

Jyn shook away the memory and pulled out her lockpicks. The door came open in a moment, now that she was familiar with the locks. Inside was darker than ever before, but Jyn felt her way through for the third time and found the stairs easy enough. She ran lightly up, one hand on her blaster just in case, and pushed the door open enough to peer inside through the crack.

Yashfeen was sitting at the table with her back to the door, her head in her hands. Bodhi – shavit, he was still here, Sward was really not going to like that – was leaning up against the counter, his arms folded and a scowl on his face. He said something to his mother in a low voice, the rolling language they spoke when they blessed Jyn’s departure, and Yashfeen answered back wearily. The rest of the apartment looked clear.

Jyn tapped at the door. Bodhi sprang up, his eyes wild, and Yashfeen turned in her chair, clutching at her green wrap.

“It’s me,” Jyn said, pushing the door open.

“Janan!” Yashfeen’s frightened face relaxed into a relieved smile. Bodhi’s, Jyn noted, did not. “I thought you had left.”

“Couldn’t,” Jyn jerked her head towards the windows. She stepped inside the room slowly, and stood near the door.

“Well, come in, and rest, friend,” Yashfeen urged, but Jyn shook her head slightly.

“Can’t,” she said softly. “Unless you can help us.”

“Us?” Bodhi said sharply, crossing his arms again. “Who is ‘us’?”

“I have…friends in the city,” Jyn said carefully, looking Yashfeen in the eye. “Some of them were hurt.” She saw understanding register on Yashfeen’s face. “We have nowhere to go,” Jyn finished softly, and though it had been years since she prayed, she considered doing it now.

“Of course,” Yashfeen began, but her son cut her off.

“No!"

"Bodhi," Yashfeen said with some surprise, "My son - "

"No, Mum,” he turned to face her, holding his hands out pleadingly. “No. Look, I don’t know exactly who these people are – and I don’t want to know,” he held up a finger warningly at Jyn as if she’d been about to speak and tell him. “But Mum, _no_ , you can’t take them in. Not right now. If anyone finds them here, if anyone _sees_ \- ” he shook his head a little frantically, then turned to Jyn. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really. But no. You can’t ask this of my mother.”

Jyn clenched her jaw, her stomach sinking, but she nodded.

“I would hope,” Yashfeen said suddenly, her voice quiet but hard as steel, “that I would have raised a son to have better manners towards my guests.”

Bodhi jerked as if slapped, and whirled around to face her. “But, Mum - ”

Yashfeen said something then in that rolling language that made Bodhi’s mouth snap shut and his shoulders tense. Jyn watched, silent.

Then Yashfeen turned to her and said graciously, “I have little to offer, Janan. But in this house, no friend in need shall ever be turned from my door.”

“Thank you,” Jyn said a little awkwardly. She glanced at Bodhi, who was still standing in the same spot, staring at the floor. “Sorry.”

He looked up at her, and she saw the desperate fear in his eyes. “Just…get them in here,” he said at last, a little hopelessly. “Quick.”

Jyn was already headed down the stairs before he’d finished.

They set Inkari up on the mat where Jyn had slept before, and Yashfeen brought out a decent if old medkit that had a few antibiotic pills. The captain gave one to Inkari and another to Lorga, and then asked for sleeping aids for Sanduni, who was clearly on the verge of a nervous break down despite her repeated claims that she was fine, _just fine, just needed a minute to breathe, fine, please, don’t worry -_

“Yvette,” the captain cut her off suddenly, crouching down next to where the Twi’lek huddled against Lorga’s side. “It’s alright to be afraid. You are not a trained soldier. None of us expect you to be fine right now.”

Sanduni stared at him, tears welling in her big eyes. “Come, my friend,” Yashfeen came up behind the captain carrying the embroidered yellow wrap she had worn the first night Jyn slept here. “Here, you look cold. The tea will be done in just a moment.”

“That’s…” Sanduni blinked, focused on the wrap. “That’s really lovely feather-stitching,” she said faintly, and then burst into tears.

Maddel was sitting against the wall by the window, her blaster in her lap, watching Bodhi – who stood in the kitchen making tea with the grim expression of a man preparing for his own funeral. His hammock was slung in the corner of the room, and Yashfeen was gently convincing Lorga to take her own bed. The Shistavanen, ears flat with embarrassment, was trying to refuse. The captain knelt at Inkari’s side now, checking his wound and speaking softly with the big Lasat. K2SO towered over him, dividing his attention between the room and the street outside the window. Jyn gave them all a last accessing glance, then decided they could sort themselves out.

Quietly, she slipped back down the stairs.

The garage was dark, lit only by a little emergency lantern that buzzed like it’s fuse was about to blow. Jyn glared at it, then plunked herself gracelessly down on a small stool by the workbench and finally, alone in the shadows with no immediate threat, buried her aching head in her hands and let herself breathe for a moment. Her eyes felt too dry and her hair pulled too tight against her temples. Jyn cursed quietly then pulled the damn tie from her hair and dug her fingers into her scalp, scraping at the ache in her head. The knot on the back of her skull had shrunk, but her head still pounded from the blow. Pain radiated all down her neck and back where she was almost certain the bruises were in full bloom, an ugly garden across her skin. Now that she was somewhere quiet, now that she had the time to notice and nothing to distract her from it, her heartbeat throbbed in her ears and set her teeth on edge with the relentless pressure.

That was probably why she didn’t hear him coming until he was almost next to her. Jyn whipped her head up at the soft step, and the motion sent a sharp spike through her temples but her hands automatically dragged her truncheons free.

The captain held perfectly still until she registered his identity, making neither move nor comment until she slowly reholstered her weapons. “Here,” he said then, holding out two small green pills in his palm. She recognized them as standard grade painkillers, the kind of thing Yashfeen probably picked up from the local pharmacy. She should turn them down, but she hadn’t slept in days now and with this headache she still wouldn’t. So Jyn carefully plucked them from his hand with a muttered _thanks._ She was about to toss them down her throat when she caught his slightly incredulous expression.

“What?”

Wordlessly, he held out a cup of tea that she hadn’t noticed in his other hand. This time she did hesitate, but well…to the many hells with it, if he wanted to kill her, drugging her was probably the least efficient way. _The Tognath crashed down next to her on the ground, right eye burned away by a perfect sniper shot, and all Jyn could think was, he came back._

Jyn took the cup, threw back the pills, and followed with a large gulp of the sweetened tea.

His eyes tracked her hand as she reached up and shoved her messy hair back, and he tilted his chin at her with the obvious question in his eyes. “It’s fine,” she told him. “Just a headache now.”

“May I check your eyes?”

She nodded, because head injuries could be a bitch and the last thing she needed was a concussion. He knelt down in front of her and leaned in slightly to look at her pupils, checking back and forth to make sure they were the same size. She half expected him to hold up one finger and ask her to track it, but given how she’d been operating all day without stumbling or seeing double, they both knew that was unnecessary. He nodded to her, and stood up. Jyn tried not to release the breath she’d been holding all at once, and took another long drink of the tea.

The captain sat down heavily across from her, leaning back against an old grav-car that Yashfeen was probably cannibalizing for parts, judging by how many were missing. "Hell of a day, no?"

She shrugged. He rested his head back against the grav-car and folded his hands over his stomach, looking relaxed and unguarded. A quiet alarm went off in the back of her mind.

“I’m impressed how fast you learned this city’s layout,” he said in a casual tone, meeting her eyes and smiling almost sweetly. “I wonder, have you been to Jedha before?”

Jyn stared at him, anger instantly boiling under her skin. Slowly, she lowered the tea to her lap. Then in an instant, she let her shoulders slump down, listing slightly to the side, and propped her head up with one hand. It took only a little bit of effort to make her hands tremble, and she made her whole face relax into a grimace of exhaustion tinged with bewilderment. “What?” she asked in a faint voice. “I don’t know what you mean…I, I don’t remember. I hit my head. I’m so tired.” She peeked at him through her eyelashes. “Can I get a medic, please?”

A moment of silence, then he closed his eyes and sighed, and Jyn straightened up. That’s what he got, she thought righteously, for trying to pull a Just A Friendly Little Chat banthashit maneuver on her like she was some kind of kriffing _rube_.

He had the grace to at least look a little ashamed. “You’ve been trained,” he said with a small flick of his fingers that said _of course you have._ “The Partisans?”

“Saw Gerrera.” She took another sip of the tea, watching him process that information.  

They lapsed into silence, Jyn nursing her tea as the sharp edges of the headache faded, while he stared down at his hands. “Just ask,” she said abruptly into the silence.

He nodded slightly at his hands, didn’t look up. “Did you know the Partisans would be here?”

“No.”

“Did they operate here before?”

“Not while I was with them.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Years,” Jyn bit out shortly, the headache starting to build again. He glanced up at that, took a long look at her face, then nodded again and fell silent once more.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last, and that shocked Jyn so much that she nearly dropped her tea.

She shrugged one shoulder irritably. “Figured you’d try it sooner or later anyway,” she said, not looking at him.

The room seemed to drop a few degrees, and she glanced up to see him staring at his hands again, except this time his eyes were unfocused and far away. “Of course,” he said in a distant voice. “That’s what people like me always do.”

 _That isn’t what I meant_ , she wanted to say, tried to say. Except maybe she had meant it, maybe she had been nursing that fear in the back of her head for the last two days. He was so _good_ at acting, slipped so easily from calm commander to friendly local to cold sniper that it gave Jyn whiplash. He could still be lying, even now, and it ate at her like acid on her skin. So the words stuck in her throat, and despite the exhaustion, she suddenly wanted to be moving, out on the street and hunting stormtroopers in the dark, maybe.

“You should sleep, Sergeant,” he interrupted her tangled thoughts. “Yashfeen found one more blanket,” he pointed at the work bench just behind her, and she noticed the faded blue blanket he must have set there when he brought her the painkillers and tea. He got up and walked towards the door. “I’ll take watch,” he said over his shoulder.

Jyn looked at the dregs of the tea he had brought her. It had been completely unnecessary, the sweetened tea, and unexpected. The painkillers, yes, that was a commander making sure his subordinates were in fighting shape. Tea to wash it down, and a blanket… _I thought_ _we agreed, Sergeant, not to leave people behind_.

“No point,” Jyn said sharply. He stopped, turned slightly to look back at her. His face was calm, distant, polite, and he waited for her explanation like a commander waiting for a report. “No good sight angles from this building,” she said, knowing that he probably knew that better than her and was just being…being…a stubborn arsehole, that’s what. “You’ll never see anyone coming until it’s too late to run. And if the Imps think there’s any rebels in here, they’ll just bomb the fucking building. It’s Day One,” she reminded him. “They aren’t interested in subtlety.”

“We can’t all sleep with an Imperial officer in the same - ”

“An Imperial officer,” Jyn cut him off, setting down her empty tea cup and grabbing the blanket. “Whose mother is sheltering rebels _in her house_. He’s not going to do anything that might jeopardize her safety. If you thought he would, we’d already be gone.” She glared at him briefly, then laid the blanket out on the floor, folded in half to give at least some padding. She considered it for a moment, then decided it was large enough that she could fold it into thirds, length-wise, and still have plenty of room. Then she turned and pointed at it. “So lay down, Captain.”

His polite expression turned incredulous again, and Jyn almost wanted to laugh at how he turned from her to the blanket and back to her again. Fuck, she was so tired. Her emotions were all over the place, and her thoughts weren’t much better. She unclipped her weapon belt and holster, setting her truncheons and blaster on the stool where she’d been sitting. “Just…please,” she said at last.

Slowly, he walked back and knelt on the blanket, then stopped and glanced up at her. “Where are you - ?”

Jyn dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and shoved. They went down with him on his back and pinned beneath her. He froze, but Jyn ignored him, wiggling around until she was laying mostly against his side, with one arm bent under both their heads as a pillow and the other thrown across his collarbone. His hand had automatically reached up and latched onto her thigh, and she adjusted until her knee was resting comfortably on his hip, letting his arm settle naturally in the small space between her belly and his side. Then she closed her eyes, and let the tension in her muscles relax with a long sigh.

She could actually hear him swallow, but she stayed still, waiting. After a moment, he drew in a deep breath, then copied her technique, blowing out the air as the muscles in his body loosened. Jyn cracked her eyelids open slightly and looked at him in the dim light of the garage. His jaw was still too tight, but he had his eyes closed and his breathing was even. He was trying to relax, trying to trust. _We can do this_ , she thought a little desperately, _we can trust each other._ Outside, she could still hear Imperial shuttles roaring across the sky, efficient, relentless, deadly.

 _We have to_.

“I was eight,” she said softly into the darkness, closing her eyes again and pressing her forehead against his shoulder. “When Saw pulled me out of the bunker where my parents hid me.” She licked her suddenly dry lips, and made herself continue. “I was sixteen when he left me in the bunker on Tamsye Prime, because I was…” she almost said it, almost actually spoke the words _the daughter of Galen Erso_ out loud, but at the last second they turned to dust in her mouth and she had to stop. “Because I wasn’t useful enough anymore,” she said instead, ruthlessly.

A pause, and then his hand moved slightly on her thigh, a small slide up and then down again, a gentle touch that made Jyn want to jerk away, made her want to pull him in closer. “And then you found your way to the Alliance instead?”

She laughed, or at least, made a small, harsh sound that could almost have been a laugh. “I was barely seventeen and starving when the recruiter found me. Ralla Baptiste, or at least that’s what she called herself. She saw me fight some thugs, offered me a meal, told me…” Jyn shook her head, eyes still clenched shut, “told me that if I fought with the Alliance, at least I wouldn’t starve.”

She half expected some lecture about fighting for the sake of the cause, or how she ought to be here because she believed in a better galaxy free from the Empire. That’s what spooks did, half the time, right? The propaganda and public relations offices were all part of the Intel department.

All he did, though, was run his hand up and down her thigh again, and then slowly she felt him turn his head towards her. “I’m glad you did, Jyn,” he said softly, and she felt the whisper of a kiss against her head. She bit the inside of her lip, because she was _not_ going to cry. How stupid would that be? She almost wished he had been arrogant enough to tell her she’d done the right thing, at least, and act like his approval was validating or some sithspit. In a way, that would have been easier to deal with. This…gentleness, kindness, whatever the hells it was, it was…well, shit.

“Get some sleep, Sward,” she said in a rough voice, curling her fingers into his shirt and focusing on slowing her breathing enough to drop off herself.

His mouth was still only a few centimeters from her forehead, so she could almost feel when he ran his tongue over his lips, a tiny movement that made her swallow reflexively. “Cassian,” he whispered. “It’s Cassian.”

 _We can do this_ , she thought again, and this time it felt like a victory.

“Sleep, Cassian,” she whispered back.

She fell asleep to the sound of Imperial patrols overhead, to the faint buzzing of the emergency lantern, and to the captain – to _Cassian’s_ steady breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something like 65 thousand words, and I finally get to type Cassian's name!
> 
> The [RA-7 droids](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/RA-7_protocol_droid/Legends) were those creepy bug-faced black droids on the Death Star in ‘A New Hope,’ and they were even worse than they seem. They were much less ‘alive’ than the other protocol droids because their bodies were essentially just platforms for carrying around spy equipment. The Emperor apparently loved giving them as “gifts” to people. There were thousands of them on board the first Death Star.
> 
> [Gamaliel Bradford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel_Bradford_\(biographer\)) was a real person, and a very interesting one. He was vocally anti-slavery in a time when very few were, especially not academic white men. (He also hated phrenology, believing it to be inherently racist.) In Star Wars, I like to imagine he was a non-human sentient who believed in abolition of all slavery and in peaceful but visible protest.
> 
> “I asked a learned scholar…” = [Honor](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/honor-14/) by William Mcgehee. I like to think that, unlike Inkari, Lorga hasn’t had much formal education but her clan had a thing for honor, so she’s heard many a song, poem, and story on the subject.
> 
> “RTB” = Return To Base (literally “ready to come home”)
> 
> The Togrun that Cassian kills to save Jyn is [Edrio](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Edrio), the egg-mate to the Togrun who grabs Bodhi in the movie. I can’t remember if we see him or not in the film, so I decided to just go ahead and sacrifice him on the altar of AU. The two Humans were randos of my own invention.
> 
> The interrogation technique that Cassian attempts on Jyn is “rapport-based,” and depends on working your way up to the information you actually want by building a “bond” with the subject. It’s manipulative, but non-violent. [Here](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/the-science-of-interrogat_b_6309296.html) is an interesting article about studies concerning the use of rapport-based techniques versus violent ones. I like to think that Cassian was excellent at charming his way through interrogations rather than beating information out of people ([which](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/01/cancel_waterboarding_101.html) [does](https://thinkprogress.org/my-experience-with-abusive-interrogation-tactics-97bd39994fae/) [not](http://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/20/science-shows-torture-doesnt-work-456854.html) [work](https://www.amazon.com/Why-Torture-Doesnt-Work-Interrogation/dp/0674743903)). Jyn, naturally, [sees right through it](http://solutions-institute.org/tradecraft-resisting-interrogation-101/) because she’s been trained by Saw Gerrera, who taught her [resistance](http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/Kubark%2082-104.pdf) in all forms, not just the violent ones. Her [resistance technique](http://cnqzu.com/library/Guerrilla%20Warfare/POW%20resitance.pdf) is called “passive confusion” and involves avoiding all questions by simply behaving as if you are physically unable to do it, but being careful never to say “sorry” or anything, because that can be filmed, taken out of context, and used as propaganda by an enemy. [This manual](https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/army/fm/fm34-52/toc.htm)is an additional interesting read if you’re curious. (Sorry, this is a subject that means a lot to me personally, so I tend to get very invested in it. Feel free to ignore this little aside).


	11. Ally (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Don’t do it,_ Jyn thought pleadingly, reaching up to clutch at the crystal around her neck.

 

For the first time in days, Jyn woke up warm. Her head was pillowed on the captain – on Cassian’s chest, rising and falling in time with his breath, his heartbeat steady and comforting in her ear. He’d stripped off his parka at some point last night and rolled it into a pillow, and then pulled her in to rest more comfortably against him. Her arm had been nearly numb at that point, so she’d let him tug her around willingly enough. As she slowly crawled back into full consciousness, she realized with mild embarrassment that she had twined her limbs all around him in her sleep; her arms were tight around his chest and neck, and she’d wedged her leg between his, hooking her ankle around his shin. She was like those creeper vines on Onderon; if the Partisans didn’t take care to cut them back every day or so, they would grow right into the fuel tanks and exhaust valves of the speeders and grav cars, until they were twined so tightly they couldn’t even be cut away.

She would have pulled away as soon as she recognized what she was doing…except she must have done something to wake him, or he was awake and simply noticed her coming around. His arm, slung around her back and holding her close to his side, tightened briefly, and then he slid his hand lightly up her side, over the curve of her hip and the dip of her waist, and then down again, a slow, soothing caress.

Jyn decided to stay where she was a little longer. It was still only pre-dawn, anyway, the garage still mostly dim and quiet. Above them, Jyn could hear the shuffling of feet on the old floor, but the sounds were soft and far away. Even the Imperial air patrols seemed to have thinned; they seemed to be spaced out by thirty minute intervals rather than fifteen. Maybe by the end of the day, they’d gap even more.

Jyn tilted her head up and looked at her pillow.

His eyes were still closed, his face almost peaceful in the dim grey light, and he stayed still even though he must have known she was looking at him.

She…sort of liked looking at him. She also sort of liked…waking up, with him, like this. Alright, the bed could be a bit more comfortable, and the imminent threat of Imperials was always a bitch, but really, this was…nice.

Jyn eyed his jawline, pleased that at least he wasn’t clenching it tightly anymore. He needed a shave though, the slightly unkempt stubble blurring the hard, narrow lines of his face a little. Abruptly, she recalled the soft scrape of that beard against her inner thighs, and she couldn’t quite stop the little shiver that memory invoked.

He sighed softly, probably misinterpreting her twitch; she felt him shift slightly beneath her, preparing to open his eyes and acknowledge that they were awake, that they had to get up and get on with their survival.

Jyn leaned up and pressed her lips softly against his throat, right where the beard started to fade into bare skin. She kept it light, barely putting any pressure on the kiss, and held it for a long, silent moment.

He drew in a sharp breath through his nose, and under her hand she felt his heartbeat quicken. Jyn let her lips curve into a small smile against his skin, and then tilted her head just a little and did it again. Then again, a little higher, trailing her mouth gently up until she brushed against his earlobe. He didn’t move, barely seemed to breath, until she sighed a little against his ear, her breath rushing warmly through his hair. He made a quiet, desperate sound in the back of his throat then, and his fingers curled tightly around her waist.

“Tease,” he whispered, eyes still closed.

“Maybe,” Jyn murmured against his neck, smiling again because this time it was his turn to shiver. Yeah, alright, she definitely liked waking up like this. He ran his hand up and down her side again, and Jyn responded by pulling herself up a little higher and kissing the underside of his jaw. The movement dragged her body against his, and she heard him bite off a groan as she pushed a little tighter against him. His free hand was suddenly wrapped hard around her thigh, and it took her a moment to understand why. Her leg was still wedged between his, and when she’d pulled herself up – her smile grew into a grin – the top of her knee was now pressed somewhere very sensitive. He didn’t seem to be in any pain, but she couldn’t tell if he was trying to prevent her from moving in closer, or from pulling away.

“Alright?” She asked against his ear again.

“Depends,” he replied in a quiet, strained voice. His eyes, Jyn noted with some humor, were still stubbornly closed.

“On what?” She kissed the bare spot below his ear again, and then trailed back down his neck.

“Whether or not this is a dream again.”

Jyn opened her mouth to ask, _again?_ Before she could, however, something heavy went  _thump_ against the top stair leading to Yashfeen’s little apartment. The old wood creaked in protest, then a moment later, another _thump_ on the stair beneath it. Cassian went still beneath her, and Jyn paused, listening. Over the groaning of the stairs, she caught the faint scrape of metal. Cassian must have heard it too, because he suddenly relaxed – his droid, Jyn realized. That huge, heavy metal creature was slowly, carefully thumping his way down the ancient stairs.

His fingers went slack on her waist and thigh; he was letting her go, waiting for her to pull away before Kay made it all the way down.

Thoughtfully, she set her lips against the hollow of his throat. “Ten credits says he falls through one of those stairs.”

He huffed a laugh that she felt in his chest. “I hope not.”

She looked up and saw that he had finally opened his eyes, and he was watching her carefully, clearly waiting to see how she handled this. _Thump…thump…creak…_

She raised an eyebrow at him, smirking.

 _Thump…thump…_ “Captain, there is a fifty-three percent chance you are still asleep. It would be optimal for you to wake up and prepare for today’s march.”

“I’m awake, Kay,” Cassian said roughly, staring at Jyn. He made no move to shove her off, and she made no attempt to get up herself. It was a bit like that game she’d played as a child, Mandalorian chicken. Jyn’s smile widened, and she raised both eyebrows at him now. She’d always been really good at that game.

 _Thump…thump…_ “Your recruits are currently rousing themselves. Sergeant Hallik is not among them.” _Thump…thump…_ “I assume she remained in the lower level with you.”

“Yes,” he said, and Jyn was impressed at how even his voice was, with her leg still pressed firmly between his legs and her weight still mostly on his chest. His face was remarkably neutral too, although his eyes were locked on hers and she could feel his heart still hammering too fast against her chest. “She’s here.”

 _Thump…_ “Is there a plan of action,” _thump…_ “or are we still, as you so elegantly put it,” his mechanical voice took on a definite note of distaste, “ _winging it_ ” today?”

The droid was almost all the way to the bottom of the stairs. Four more steps, Jyn did the mental math, and then K2SO would walk around the workbench and find them. She wondered if he would pick her up and slam her against the floor again when he caught her molesting his officer.

Cassian still didn’t move.

“Not that any of us currently have wings,” the droid continued. “Organic or mechanical.” Jyn raised an eyebrow at Cassian, tilting her head curiously. He rolled his eyes slightly.

_Thump…_

“It’s an expression,” Cassian called, and though his voice was still even, she saw him swallow hard. “I promise no wings are involved.”

“Human expressions are among the least sensible I have ever catalogued,” Kay said grouchily.

_Thump…_

Cassian took a deep breath, the movement lifting Jyn a little as he pulled in air. His hands were still loose on her body, but she felt his fingers flex for just a moment, the way they had in his room, days ago when he was struggling between the promise to let her go and the desire to pull her in again.

_Thump…_

Jyn flashed him a real, full smile, surged up and pressed a fierce kiss to his lips, then before he could blink, she rolled up to her feet and started to wrangle her hopelessly untidy hair back into some kind of bun.

 _Thump…clunk…_ The droid’s heavy metal feet struck the duracrete floor of the garage, and Jyn looked over the workbench to meet his optics. “Oh, you are here,” he said almost tonelessly. Jyn shrugged at him, pulling her hair tie from her wrist and securing the bun in place. “Where is the captain?”

“Give me a moment, Kay,” Cassian replied from the floor. Jyn didn’t look down at him, but from the corner of her eye she saw him sitting on the blanket where she’d left him, his legs pulled up and his elbows propped almost carelessly on his knees. Jyn snapped her face back into neutral and stepped around the workbench.

“I’ll get the recruits ready, Captain,” she said casually over her shoulder.

“Yes, fine,” he muttered from the floor. “Do that.”

As she climbed the stairs, she heard the droid stomp around the workbench and ask, “Is Sergeant Hallik aware of your masterplan for _winging_ today’s plan?”

Upstairs, she found the Twi’lek draped in Yashfeen’s yellow wrap, standing next to the Lasat and rebandaging his wide torso while he ate some kind of soup at the small table. Inkari looked significantly better, although he was still too grey and his movements were slow and careful. “Good morning, Sergeant,” Sanduni said in an almost-cheerful voice. Nearby, Lorga sat against the wall and chewed halfheartedly on a ration bar, her leg propped up on a small pillow. Maddel was leaning against the wall almost exactly where she’d been when Jyn had gone downstairs. Bodhi was standing by the stove top, still scowling at it slightly but stirring a pot of soup diligently. Jyn glanced through Yashfeen’s bedroom door and saw the woman folding up the last of a stack of blankets on the bed.

They were groggy and red-eyed, and both Lorga and Inkari were pinched with pain and weak from blood loss, but they looked better than she expected. In fact, they looked significantly better than expected. Jyn eyed them all for a moment until finally it hit her; Maddel’s hair, which had been a wrecked bird’s nest last night, was now combed smooth and pinned up in a simple but elegant knot again. Lorga’s fur no longer looked like she’d rolled in grease and mud. Even Sanduni looked like she’d been scrubbed.

“Ah, Janan,” Yashfeen floated into the kitchen and smiled at Jyn. “Just in time, Yvette has finished with the sonic.”

Jyn blinked. “Right,” she said a little stupidly. “Sonic. Thanks.”

She should have turned it down, honestly, but it had been, what? Three days since her last shower? And longer since she’d cleaned these clothes. Frankly, she looked, felt, and smelled disgusting. She could spare five minutes for a quick sonic.

The ‘fresher was only slightly larger than the last one she’d showered in ( _not_ thinking about that, _shit, Erso, get it together_ ), and it had a small silvered mirror on the wall next to the sonic. Jyn avoided looking at it, kicking off her boots and unwrapping her scarf as she stepped between the sonic panels. She left the boots by the door but carried the scarf in with her. She held it stretched out in her hands as the sonic buzzed across her clothing, making sure to get both sides of the rich blue cloth clean. The star embroidery was too eye-catching to be safe, but she could just flip it inside out and it was just a dark blue scarf. Perfect. She let the sonic clean her clothes for about two minutes, then quickly stripped to her skin, leaving only her kyber crystal around her neck. Outside, she could hear the creak of the stairs again, the captain’s light tread versus the droid’s heavy one. The indistinct sound of multiple voices speaking softly filtered through the thin walls. Jyn grit her teeth and forced herself to stand naked in the sonic for the minimum time necessary to get clean, trying to ignore the sounds of people too close while she was so vulnerable.

“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty,” she whispered through her teeth, and then raced to throw her clothes and gear back on. She tucked the starry scarf carefully around her neck to hide the pattern, and buckled her weapon harness tightly. It was going to be a long day, she could feel it.

The captain was standing in Yashfeen’s bedroom when Jyn came out, his parka looped over his arm and his back to the ‘fresher door. “Your turn,” Jyn told him casually, and he turned without comment and walked in. She remembered the last time they’d traded the ‘fresher like this, and couldn’t resist reaching out and brushing her fingertips lightly against his hip as he passed. His lip quirked, but he didn’t lean down and kiss her cheek this time. For the best, of course, because the door was wide open and she could see Bodhi and Inkari sitting together at the table.

Still. Would have been nice.

The roof rattled slightly as an Imperial air patrol ship passed close overhead, and Jyn shook herself. _Head in the game, Sergeant Erso_ , she scolded herself. _Survival first, hormones second._

“Ten minutes,” she told the room as she walked back in. “Get food in your face and pack any gear.”

“There’s some soup left,” Bodhi gestured to the stove. “Bowls are in the cupboard, there.”

“Thank you,” Jyn shook her head. “But your mum will need it.”

“I can spare a bit of soup, my friend,” his mother replied dryly from the sink where she was washing the used bowls.

Jyn folded her arms. “This isn’t a temporary thing,” she said a little harsher than she intended. “They’re setting up checkpoints. It’s an occupation. There will be shortages. Rationing. Prices will go up, supplies will go down.” She jerked her head at the pot. “Save it. You’ll need it.”

“ _What terrible days we must expect to endure_ ,” Inkari recited quietly into the silence after Jyn’s words, “ _as a price for this chance to live and decay_.”

“Eight minutes,” Jyn replied flatly.

“Janan,” Yashfeen said as the recruits suddenly bustled about snapping their small packs closed and cramming whatever food they held into their mouths. “Where are you planning to go?”

Jyn resisted the urge to shrug and turn away. Yashfeen wasn’t probing for intel, she was just concerned. “Out of the city, if we can,” she said instead. She glanced up at Bodhi, who was fiddling with a pair of gloves and watching her through guarded eyes. “We can’t stay here,” Jyn continued, speaking to Yashfeen but looking at Bodhi. “We can’t put you at any more risk.”

Bodhi snorted. “I appreciate your belated consideration.”

“Bodhi,” Yashfeen said disapprovingly.

The Imperial hunched his shoulders reflexively, but he refused to look away from Jyn’s eyes.

Jyn nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I know.”

And she did, she understood. If this were her mother’s home, her mother’s life in peril…but it wasn’t, was it? That was the whole point. Jyn strode forward, grabbed the chair across from Bodhi, and sat down. She leaned across the table and stared hard into his eyes. Bodhi leaned back a little, startled and uncertain by her suddenly intent manner. “What are you - ”

“Come with us,” she interrupted him.

He stared at her, his mouth hanging open. “Are you crazy?”

“Um, Sergeant,” Sanduni said nervously, but Yashfeen placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and shook her head. Bodhi glanced up in surprise; Jyn didn’t.

Instead, she narrowed her eyes. “Why did you join the Empire?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Bodhi said irritably, but he still didn’t pull away, and Jyn waited. “We needed the money,” he said finally, in a flat, angry tone. “Maybe you noticed, _Janan,_ that my mother isn’t in the best of health?”

“The first thing they’ll close is the clinics,” Jyn told him with as little emotion in her voice as possible. “They’ll claim it’s for inspection, evaluation. They’ll open them again a month or so later, and everything will be clean and shiny looking, and they may even offer free medications or consults. That usually lasts about another month, and then prices will rise. The shortages and rationing will be in effect by then. The prices will rise, medications, injuries, surgeries, they’ll get more and more expensive. People will get desperate, hungrier and sicker, and then the riots will start.” She tightened her grip on Bodhi’s wrist. “You think they’ll protect her? You think they’ll make special exception for some random cargo pilot’s mother?”

“What do you want me to do about it?” This time he did jerk his arm away, but he sat tense and still in his chair, and she could tell he was listening carefully. He knew, she realized. He knew what an Imperial invasion looked like, he’d probably seen it before. He’d probably thought all the things she was saying before, but nobody liked to feel helpless, and in the face of such overwhelming power, Bodhi, like many others, hoped that if he simply bent his head and stayed very still, it would pass him by.

She knew that hope. She’d felt it before, once in a dark bunker on Lah’mu, and again in the months between Saw and the Alliance recruiter. It was a seductive feeling, and a dangerous one.

“Come with us,” Jyn said again. “Push back. You have information that could help the Alliance fight the people who are crushing your city, risking your mother.” If she could just get him to see that he wasn’t helpless, if she could just convince him that he could make some kind of difference… “An experienced pilot, someone who knows how the Empire works, where they send shipments, what they do with that cargo…that would matter, Bodhi. You can fight the people who invaded your home. You can help people like your mother. You _can_.”

“Imperial officers’ families can get health care at any facility,” Bodhi said, but the words were sullen and almost ashamed; he avoided her eyes.

“The Empire murdered my mother,” Jyn said flatly. Around her, the room went silent. “They shot her and left her to rot in a field.” Bodhi’s shoulders were ridged and his mouth worked like he was trying to speak, but Jyn forged on. “And they’ve done it to a thousand others just like her, hundreds of thousands. And if she gets even slightly in their way,” she reached out and gripped Bodhi’s wrist on the table. He stiffened but looked up again. “They’ll do it to yours.”

The room was silent, and for a moment, just a moment, Jyn looked into Bodhi’s eyes and thought – _yes_.

But then he glanced at Yashfeen, and his face hardened. “If I did,” he said in a strangled voice. “If I did, they’d – she _would_ be - I can’t. I’m sorry, Janan, but I…can’t.” He shook his head and dropped his gaze back to his lap.

Jyn leaned back in her chair. “Alright,” she said after a beat.

“Time to go,” the captain said from the bedroom door behind Jyn. She clenched her teeth and willed herself not to jump. How long had he been standing there?

Jyn pushed herself to her feet and nodded at Bodhi, who returned the gesture stiffly. Yashfeen’s lined face looked even more weary than before when Jyn turned to her, but she managed a smile and held out her hands. “Be safe, Janan,” she said, and then she spoke that blessing in her rolling language again.

“What does that mean?” Jyn asked.

Yashfeen smiled, reached out and laid a thin hand against Jyn’s cheek. “It means ‘you are strong enough to live the life given to you.’ An old farewell, spoken among friends.”

Jyn bowed her head briefly, and then stepped back and turned sharply on her heel. “Lorga, Sanduni, five meters leash on me, stay together. Lorga, put that hood on your jacket up. Maddel, ten meter leash. Inkari, you can lean on Kay in the rear guard. We’ll move slow but we can’t stop. You got some meds?”

“Lady Yashfeen has kindly provided me with more than enough for the coming days, Sergeant,” Inkari told her, gesturing to a small grey case clipped to his belt. He leaned on Maddel’s offered shoulder carefully and looked over her blonde head to Yashfeen. “For which I am deeply grateful, madam. May your heart flourish as a wildflower in these coming troubles, able to grow and thrive in even the most broken of places.”

He bowed slightly, and Yashfeen, though she looked slightly taken aback, inclined her head graciously.

“Kay has a five block radius on his scans. I’ve told him to run them every fifteen minutes,” the captain told Jyn, “and I’ll take high cover and scout from the rooftops.” He turned towards the door, pausing only for a moment to meet Bodhi’s eyes. “Good luck,” he said quietly.

Bodhi shifted in his chair, but just as the rebel captain was about to pass through the door, the Imperial pilot said, “you too,” and then repeated his mother’s blessing.

 _You are strong enough to live the life given to you_ , Jyn thought. Not “ _may_ you be strong enough,” no uncertainty or ambiguity, just a simple acknowledgement. She wished she had time to learn how to say it in old Jedhan.

Another day, perhaps, or another life.

In this life, it was time to go. Jyn followed close behind Cassian as he led the way down the stairs, back to where Kay stood patiently by the door in the garage. “Head east,” he told her in an undertone as the recruits arranged themselves as Jyn had ordered. “Our best bet now is to get out of the city until the lockdown is over. There must be service exits and small gates out into the desert.”

Jyn nodded and flicked on her comm. “Same freqs as yesterday?”

“No, we should rotate them every day at least. Here,” he reached up to her collar, pushing aside her scarf a little to fiddle with the small input keypad on the side. She turned her head and surveyed the recruits with as calm and disinterested expression as she could manage, noting that Lorga had finally crammed her furry ears into a hood and Maddel was inexpertly wrapping a faded pinkish scarf around her own neat hair.

 “I checked the garage for comm parts,” Cassian said almost in her ear. “I would have liked to patch everyone in.”

Jyn grimaced. “I checked, too. Nothing. Guess we’ll have to,” she smirked at him, “wing it.”

“Never be flippant to Kay,” Cassian told her with mock solemnity. “It has a tendency to backfire.”

“Noted.”

He gave her a wry smile, and then stepped away and turned to face the recruits. “Weapons prepped and ready, but no one engages without my or the sergeant’s permission. Keep in visual range to the best of your ability, but if you get separated, head for the eastern wall of the city.”

To Jyn surprise, it was Maddel who responded. “May the Force be with us,” she said firmly, like she was commanding it to be so.

Dawn was only just warming Jedha’s streets with pinks and golds, but the cheerful daylight was dimmed by the looming Star Destroyer overhead. Behind her, Jyn caught Sanduni’s muffled gasp, and heard Lorga growl, “it’s bigger every time I kriffing look up.” Silently, Jyn agreed, but there was no time to dwell on it. She tugged her scarf up around her head, taking care to fold any sign of embroidered stars out of sight, and headed east.

Jedha’s streets were still deserted as Jyn’s team slipped carefully through the alleyways and side streets as quickly as they could manage. In some of the places they passed, the litter and debris of the interrupted festival had been shoved into heaps of ribbons and broken lanterns on the side of the streets. Jyn saw one or two colorful _nafas_ still on the sides of buildings, but most had been scrubbed away or smeared into indistinct blobs.

They moved in fits and starts, ducking mostly through alleys and sometimes through emptied out buildings where the doors had clearly been smashed inwards and the interiors tossed or, once, burned out. Twice, Kay warned Jyn over the comm of an Imperial checkpoint along her planned route, forcing the whole team to double back to avoid it. Once, Cassian had snapped “get down, _now_ ,” and Jyn had dropped behind a crashed speeder as a ground patrol came around the corner and marched briskly past her. A little while later, he’d told her Maddel had lost sight of Sanduni and Lorga and gone down the wrong side road, and Jyn had called a halt for several nerve-wracking minutes while he doubled back along the roofs to find her and guide her back to the team. After the second hour, Kay informed her that Inkari was struggling to catch his breath despite the slow pace, and required a minimum of fifteen minutes to rest and ingest medication.

By the fourth hour of their painfully slow progress, Jyn’s tightly-wound nerves were starting to twang dangerously. A TIE fighter on air patrol screamed by overhead, and she ducked for what felt like the thousandth time under a narrow red awning in front of some dark-windowed shop, waiting for it to pass. Even after the roar faded, though, she found herself leaning against the relatively cool glass and closing her eyes, trying to settle her jittery mind and loosen some of the unbearable tension from her aching muscles. Her back still fucking hurt, her headache had returned with a vengeance hours ago, and every faint rumble of tank treads or stomp of booted feet conjured up images of her recruits captured, injured, killed. Every air patrol that blasted by made her heart clench like a fist as she wondered if Cassian was exposed up on the rooftops, caught somewhere without a bird hutch or message tower to huddle under. Karking hellspawn, she was even worried about the droid – what would it be like, if they caught Kay and reprogrammed his obedience back into him?

 _Not helping, Erso_. _Not helping at all._

Her comm crackled in her ear. “Alright?” Cassian’s voice was gentle, edging dangerously into concerned.

Her eyes snapped open and she pushed off the glass, checking down the street for ‘troopers, and then starting off to the east. “I’m fine.”

“Okay. Just tell me if you need - ”

Suddenly, his voice cut off, and Jyn threw a furtive look up at the catwalks above her. She didn’t see him, of course, but her throat felt dry and her heart started to beat too fast. “Cas- Captain?”

“Market ahead,” he said after a tense moment. His voice sounded odd, detached and brusque. “We’ll have to pass through, there are too many checkpoints on the routes around. ‘Troopers present, but plenty of workers. They won’t notice a few random civilians if we move with purpose.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll pass it down.”

Jyn crept back along the wall. Lorga and Sanduni saw her coming and huddled patiently under a bright yellow umbrella that had been left open over the table of a small outdoor café. Jyn told them what she knew and flicked her fingers at Lorga’s leg. “You’ll have to walk without help for a little ways,” she said with only a hint of sympathy. Anything more would have the Shistavanen’s ruff up. “We’ll have to look like workers, and injuries will call attention.”

“I’ll manage,” Lorga shrugged. “Bet I can even keep the limp down.”

“Good. Sanduni, you stay behind her just in case. Keep your face turned down and see if there’s anything you can carry around, like a tool kit or something. ‘Troopers don’t fuck with workers too much, it interferes with efficiency.”

“Okay, Sarge,” Sanduni managed a small, strained smile, a shadow of her normal grin, but Jyn was impressed that she was still trying anyway.

“Pass it back to Maddel, then follow in about ten minutes,” she ordered, then turned back east again.

Twenty minutes later, Jyn came to the entrance of the market. As she looked across the only bustling space she’d seen in two days, she suddenly understood why Cassian’s voice had gone so cold. She hadn’t recognized the streets without the crushing crowds shoving her along, but she’d been here before.

Across the wide street and open square space of the market, the Dome of Deliverance towered over the surrounding buildings. It’s many double doors were all wide open, and as Jyn peered inside them, she felt a sickening wrench in her guts. The Imps had set up bright fluorescent construction lights every few meters within the Dome, casting a cold, clinical white shine on everything. Several grey metal ladders were set up at random intervals between the lights, and people with buzzing hand saws were perched on them, chopping down the glittering strands of Kyber with brutal efficiency. Others were chipping away at the walls, prying the fist-sized crystals from the star-patterns painted into the stone walls, scraping and shredding the murals in the process. The workers –  it looked like the Imps had hired or conscripted a bunch of locals - dropped the crystals into the large open crates, and more workers loaded the crates onto transport convoy trucks. As Jyn entered the flow of workers around one of the open doors, she saw a fully loaded convoy truck leaving the market and headed for a nearby space port, where Imperial cargo shuttles were now bustling between the port and the Star Destroyer.

Well, that explained why the cargo pilots had been called in. She wondered if Bodhi was in one of those shuttles, helping the Empire loot his city.

As she passed the open door, one of the crate loaders stumbled against an industrial light fixture and sent it crashing over. “Watch it, clod!” someone else shouted at him in a Core world accent. The sounds of cracking stone and tinkling crystal washed over Jyn, and she turned her face away from the harsh white lights.

 _They called it the Infinite_ , she thought, and the strength of her sudden anger surprised her, knotting itself around her heart and lungs like painful, cutting wires.

But there was no time for it, and ruthlessly she shook away the warmth of Cassian’s arm around her shoulders, the sensation of falling through endless stars, and the slightly embarrassing sweetness of remembering how she’d started calling him _friend_ in her head as he’d walked with her through the glittering darkness.

The destruction made sense, really. Jyn ducked her chin a little and strode across the market like she was in a hurry to her next task, dodging around the workers carting buckets and tools along the street in trudging steps. Jedha wasn’t the only planet in the galaxy to have Kyber crystals, but Jedha City was definitely the most abundant amount of crystals she’d ever heard of in any one place. They plastered the damn things into everything around here, statues and garden posts and temple walls alike. She’d even heard rumors of whole untapped mines, down underneath the city itself. And the crystals were valuable, if not the rarest of gems on the market.

Were they valuable enough to mount a full-scale invasion? Jyn frowned as she dodged another down-trodden, tired worker. Casually, she snatched up an empty bucket sitting on the road side as she passed, and hefted it up as if it were heavy and cumbersome and required all of her attention. Did the Empire – or at least some officer high enough to have this kind of power - need funds for something? What market were the Imps planning to sell all this Kyber on, anyway? Or were they just going to hoard it until prices rose dramatically, and then some Moff would make a fortune in a long-term investment scheme?

Without warning, a dozen white stormtroopers and two black deathtroopers emerged from a shop only an arm’s length away from Jyn. The knotted wires of tension in her chest tightened, and she swallowed hard and willed her lungs to breath normally, her heart to beat steady and calm. She bowed her head and stepped a little faster towards the far side of the market. _Hellfires and shitstorms,_ this was really not the time. What the Empire wanted with a bunch of Kyber crystals wasn’t her problem, anyway.

She was almost there. Behind her, Lorga and Sanduni must have reached the market space by now, and possibly Maddel, too. Jyn didn’t dare look back and check.

The ‘troopers were so close that Jyn could reach out and touch the nearest. _Ignore the knots around her heart. Deep breaths. Shoulders relaxed. Chin down, but not staring at the dirt. Just another worker._

She was almost to the other side when a powerful, furious voice rang out over the noise of the destruction.

**“Thieves and trespassers! You despoil these hallowed grounds! Stand and answer!”**

Everyone in the market place froze. The crashing from inside the Dome stopped, and a tense hush fell over the crowd. Even the convoy transports suddenly switched off their engines. Something heavy and cold settled in Jyn’s chest, a sense of dread so palpable she imagined it like a stone sitting between her ribs. Slowly, she raised her head.

There were two dozen of them, mostly humans but with a few Twi’leks, Nautolans, and even a Zabrack, standing in two neat rows on the east edge of the market in their flowing black and red robes. Each carried some kind of bowcaster in one hand, a glowing red lantern in the other. The speaker was the large man in the middle of the first row brandishing his lantern at the Imperials like he meant to strike them with it, and Jyn recognized his thick beard and fierce eyes. It was the big Guardian who had watched her enter the Pilgrim’s Way, the one who noted all her weapons and gave her the silent warning. He looked even bigger now, gazing with fury on those who dared defile a place the monks held sacred.

One of the deathtroopers stepped forward, and the big Guardian swung his attention to the black-clad soldier. He lowered his lantern, but raised the bowcaster, and around him, so did the other monks. Jyn noticed the monk directly to the big man’s left did not have a lantern, but rather an oddly-carved wooden staff. His head was angled almost directly at Jyn, and she caught sight of flat blue eyes.

“Your organization has been found in violation of Imperial Law,” the deathtrooper buzzed into the hushed silence of the market. “You will surrender your weapons peacefully and submit to lawful trial.”

None of the Guardians moved. _Don’t do it,_ Jyn thought pleadingly, reaching up to clutch at the crystal around her neck. The wires tangled around her heart were painfully tight, knots of fear and anger and a desperate need to stop what she knew was coming. _Not like this. It won’t be enough._

The big man glowered, and his voice boomed out again. “We are the Guardians of the Whills.” His voice seemed to echo throughout the stone walls, rattling the windows, startling back the few workers standing near him. Jyn edged a little further out of the crowd, clutching the bucket so tight her hands ached and silently praying that he would stop before it was too late.

The Guardian with the staff turned his head, and she had the strangest feeling that even at this distance, he was following Jyn’s movements.

“We are charged with the protection of this city,” shouted the big Guardian ( _don’t say it, don’t say it_ ), “We follow no law but the laws of the Temple, and _we do not submit_.”

 _Shit_.

Things happened very fast, after that.

“Subdue and secure,” the leading deathtrooper’s mechanized voice buzzed, and instantly the ‘troopers raised their rifles. Just as swiftly, the Guardians threw down their lanterns and drew their bowcasters, moving so in synch that two dozen crossarms snapped open with a single, loud _crack_. The first row dropped to their knees, the second aimed over their heads, and without a word, they opened fire.

The ‘troopers fired at the same time, and the market place turned in an instant from a frozen tableau to a frantic battlefield. Blaster bolts whined through the air, thick as a swarm of deadly insects. The workers shrieked and scrambled for cover, throwing down their tools and crates as they stampeded away. In the chaos, Jyn had just enough time to catch sight of lilac lekku swinging through the crowd, but then she had to dive to the dirt to avoid a bolt through the chest. She rolled behind a dropped crate of crystals, just big enough to cover her if she sprawled on her belly, and peered around the side. Three of the stormtroopers were down, the rest were taking cover behind the convoy trucks, firing steadily into…a cloud of smoke? It boiled up from the place where the Guardians had stood, a massive blood-red thunderhead that spilled between the buildings and billowed out towards the market square. Bolts of green and yellow light flashed out from the cloud like lightening at irregular intervals and from unpredictable angles.

The lanterns! The Guardians’ red lanterns must have had smoke bombs built inside them. The angles of the shots from within the cloud probably meant the Guardians were moving to more secure locations, too. Good, that should buy them time to retreat, and Jyn time to find her recruits. At least Sanduni had been running east when Jyn had glimpsed her. Hopefully she and Lorga were still together, and headed the right way. Jyn rolled again and pushed to her feet, dodging a panicked worker. The move carried her close to the transport trucks, and as she ran behind the focused ‘troopers, she heard one shouting into his comm in a crackling voice. “Hostile forces in Grid 5-5-9-Alpha, request air support. Hostile forces in Grid 5-5-”

Jyn was still holding the metal bucket. It made a very satisfying noise as it collided with the back of the ‘trooper’s helmet. The ‘trooper next to him didn’t even have a chance to turn around before Jyn took a deep breath and ducked inside the red cloud.

Her vision turned crimson and her lungs ached, but she didn’t dare breathe in until she was through the cloud and into the side streets. The air was still hazy with the red smoke, but she had to risk breathing sooner or later, and it didn't smell like a gas bomb when she sucked in air again. A dark-robed human body lay on his side in the street, bowcaster dropped awkwardly near his out-flung hand, dead eyes staring sightless at the sky. Jyn tried not to feel relieved that he was neither the big man nor the blind one.

The relief only intensified when Cassian’s voice was suddenly loud in her ear again. _“Jyn!"_

"Here," she panted, darting to the nearest alley.

"I have eyes on," his voice dropped back into cool professionalism. "Turn right. Sanduni and Lorga are two blocks over.”

“The others?” Jyn swung right and sprinted down the streets, weaving through the last of the panicked workers and listening for the sounds of Imperial reinforcements.

“I’ve got them. Moving down to street level. Incoming air patrols.”

She heard the TIE engines at the same time he called them out. Ahead of her, she also heard the distinct howl of a pissed off Shistavanen, and forced her legs to stretch out a little longer, pushed herself to sprint just a little faster. She came careening around the street corner just in time to see Lorga swiping at a stormtrooper with outstretched claws, her lips drawn back in a vicious snarl and her eyes wild. Sanduni hunkered in a nearby doorway, trying desperately to aim the Derringer blaster at the three other ‘troopers without hitting Lorga.

Jyn came in hard and fast, blaster in one hand and vibroblade in the other. She jammed the blade under the first ‘trooper’s chin, snapping his head back and forcing her to let go of the knife as he dropped. She pivoted on her heels and shot the second ‘trooper through the stomach, but even as she turned to face the third, a staff whipped out of the alley behind him and slammed the ‘trooper into the wall hard enough to shatter the eye-plates in the helmet and drop the Imp like a sack of meat.

Jyn heard the distinct crunch of bone and glanced back in time to see Lorga shake the last ‘trooper like a dog shaking a rat in her jaws, and then the Shistavanen dropped the dead man and turned to snarl at the newcomers.

“Peace, friend,” the blind monk said before Jyn could intervene, holding up his empty hand and settling his staff against his shoulder. “Our quarrel today is not with you.”

“Is everyone okay?” Sanduni called from the doorway, her hands shaking but her voice surprisingly steady.

“Fine,” Lorga grunted. “We’re fine. But where’s the rest?” She looked at Jyn.

“We’ll rendezvous at the wall,” Jyn told her in as calm and professional voice as she could muster, fighting to get her breathing under control. She dropped to one knee and yanked her blade free from the 'trooper's head. "Stow your weapons and let's go."

“Enough of this,” the big Guardian growled from behind his blind friend. “We need to get back to the battle.”

At that moment, two TIE fighters screamed by overhead, and fired short-range missiles into the market place behind them. The distant sound of screaming was drowned by the roar of fire and the force of the impact. Pillars of dust and rubble fountained into the air, and the ground shook from the air strike. Jyn grabbed Lorga and bodily shoved her into the alley, gesturing for Sanduni to duck inside too.

“There is no battle,” Jyn snapped when the noise faded enough for speech. “There’s nothing back there but death for all of you.”

“The other Guardians may still be engaged in battle there. Would you have us abandon our duty? Our brothers and sisters?” The big Guardian turned his fierce glower on Jyn, but she planted her feet and gave it right back. “Our honor _demands_ -”

“That you get a lot of people killed for a place that’s already been ransacked?” Jyn darted closer and jammed her finger against his broad chest. “That you die for _nothing_?”

The big Guardian seemed to grow even bigger, his eyes dark and murderous, but before he could bellow back, the other monk reached out and laid a slim hand against his back. “Baze,” he said quietly. “We must be wiser than this.”

The big Guardian, Baze, whirled on him, almost shaking with his fury now. “Wisdom stagnates, Chirrut,” he thundered, “without the strength to act!”

“And power blinds,” Chirrut replied in a quiet, brittle voice, “without the serenity to see.”

_“They are killing our people!”_

Chirrut’s voice suddenly cracked like a whip, and he slammed the metal end of his staff against the ground. “So you prefer that _we_ kill them instead?”

It hit the big Guardian like a blow to the gut, and he staggered slightly, his balance lost. Jyn almost reached out to steady him, but knew better.

“How many in the market, Baze?” Chirrut continued, his voice quiet again. “How many died today because we preferred action to understanding?”

“All is as the Force wills it,” Baze said in a thick, heavy voice, as if he were reciting something he was not entirely sure supported his point.

“Yes,” Chirrut bowed his head. “Yes, it is.”

Overhead, another TIE patrol screamed low over the buildings. They didn’t drop any bombs, but Lorga snarled at the sky and Jyn grit her teeth. They were out of time.

“No,” Baze growled after the roar of engines had died away into the distance again. “This invasion _cannot_ be the will of the Force. They are tearing our city apart, Chirrut!”

“Sergeant?” The captain spoke softly in her ear; she wondered how much of all that he’d been able to pick up through her comm. “Are you clear of the combat zone?”

“We need to move,” Jyn said sharply, interrupting whatever Chirrut had been about to reply to Baze. She glanced at Lorga, whose leg was bleeding through her trousers, and Sanduni, who was shaking again despite her obvious effort to hide it. “And we need your help,” she added.

“Yes,” the blind monk said, and there was something like resignation in his tone that bewildered Jyn. “You will.”

“Standby for coordinates,” the captain said on her comm.

“Then help us,” Jyn looked from one Guardian to the other. “Please.”

For a moment, she thought the big one was going to refuse. He gripped his bowcaster with white knuckles and glared at the street behind Jyn like he wanted to run out and hunt down every Imperial in the whole city, alone if he must. She recognized the expression, the burning hatred and desperation in his eyes. The blind monk bowed his head, and sighed softly into the silence of the alley, and the fire banked suddenly in the other’s eyes.

“Come here, girl,” he grunted, holstering his bowcaster and stomping to Lorga’s side. “Give me your arm.”

“Don’t call me girl, old man,” Lorga snapped, but she allowed him to sling her arm over his broad shoulders and leaned against him.

“Don’t call me old, _nȗ láng_.”

Behind her, Sanduni fidgeted with her rough brown shirt, clenching and unclenching her shaky fingers.

“Such a long day,” Chirrut sighed loudly, tapping his staff wearily against the dirt and tilting his head very deliberately towards the Twi’lek. “And I a simple old man with only a stick to lean on.”

Jyn resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his transparency. “Sanduni, help him. Lorga, stop growling and keep weight off that leg. Let’s move, people, before the Imps start sweeping the area for stragglers.” The Twi’lek shyly offered her arm to the blind monk, who smiled kindly and wrapped it around his own as if she was escorting him around a ballroom rather than a war-torn occupied city.

“A lovely day for a stroll to the east,” he said pleasantly. “May I ask where we are going, Sergeant?”

In the back of her mind, Jyn tried to recall if either of the recruits had referred to her as ‘sergeant’ in front of the monks, but the rest of her was too preoccupied with finding a safe route through the ‘trooper-filled streets to care. “East wall,” she said. “We’re meeting with the rest of our team and getting out of the city, for now.”

“You won’t get through the gates,” Baze told her, hauling Lorga’s larger frame along with apparent ease. “They’ve got patrols and scanners at all of them.”

“Service access?” Jyn peered around a corner, scanned the street, and then led them down it when it was empty.

“Security droids at all of them. Even the maintenance panels.”

Sanduni clutched at Chirrut’s hand on her arm bit her lip. “So there’s no way out?”

“Those with faith shall always find a way,” Chirrut reassured her, a touch louder than necessary. “For the Force is with us all.”

“Catacombs,” Baze snapped. “You can go through the catacombs.”

The next street was clear too. “Captain,” Jyn turned her head and spoke into her comm as quietly as possible. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes. Sounds like our only option. The patrols will pick up again, after today’s fight.” He hesitated, and then in a softer voice added, “Be careful, Sergeant.”

“On our way,” Jyn replied. “And we will, Captain.”

The coordinates were for a small public garden near the east wall, and it only took Jyn’s party about an hour to pick their way through the streets. But her chest stayed tight and her nerves on edge until she crossed through the white stone arch and saw the rest of her people sitting on the small tiled benches among the flowers and shrubs. The captain was leaning against the far wall next to his droid, his arms crossed and his face impassive. He turned and met her eyes as she led her half of the team in, however, and Jyn felt the tightest knot in her chest unwind a little. She swept a quick, assessing look over him, checking for injury, and felt a mild flash of humor (mixed with something warmer that she didn’t really want to examine right now) to see him doing the same to her.

“Jak! Is your wound alright? Oh, Rodma, your face, what happened?” Sanduni threw a hand up to her mouth, staring at the bruises on Maddel’s jaw and the pale cast of Inkari’s skin. She took an involuntary step towards them, then stopped and looked back at Chirrut, still holding her arm. The monk gently took her hand and patted it.

“See to your friends, I believe I can manage from here. Thank you for your kindness, Yvette.”

“The odds that you would survive that firefight were exceedingly low,” Kay informed her as Jyn crossed the gardens to Cassian’s side. “Almost as low as the odds that you would avoid injury at the checkpoint yesterday. You continue to confound tactical hazard assessments, Sergeant Hallik.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Jyn glared at him.

The captain turned his head away from the rest of the group, speaking in a voice low enough that only Jyn and Kay could hear him. “Kay, what is the probability that the Guardians will endanger our team if we allow them to travel with us?”

“Twenty-seven percent,” Kay responded almost instantly. “Unless the large one comes with us without the small one’s presence, in which case, seventy-eight percent.”

“He's looking for a fight,” Jyn agreed. “But Chirrut will keep him focused on survival, I think. Chirrut won’t come without Baze, though, so no point calculating the odds of _him_ going rogue,” she said in an aside to Kay.

“So we need them both.” Cassian sighed slightly. “Alright. Let’s get everyone to drink some water and check their injuries, then we head out.”

“I will inform the recruits and the Guardians that they have five minutes,” Kay said, and then stomped heavily away, leaving Jyn and Cassian by the wall. He looked at her for a long moment, then slumped back against the stone, arms folded as he watched her quietly. It should have made her uncomfortable, but it didn’t.

“How much of it did you see?” Jyn asked. She didn't elaborate, but he knew what she meant.

“I doubled back to check on Inkari and Kay, so I didn’t see when the Guardians arrived.” His face darkened, “Or when the shooting started. Heard it, though.” He gestured roughly at his earpiece. “Tried to comm you. No answer.”

“The fight must have drowned it out.”

A complicated expression contorted his face for a moment, but before Jyn could parse it, he smoothed it out again and nodded. “I hoped that was the case.”

They lapsed into silence, but it felt tense, like there was something missing in the conversation but neither of them could figure out what it was. Finally, Jyn folded her arms in mirror to him and said, “How much longer do you think the lockdown will last?”

He frowned. “Kay calculated the lockdown would lift tonight, but after that fight in the market…”

“They’ll extend it to hunt down the monks,” Jyn grimaced, glancing back at where Chirrut was kneeling serenely near a small flowering tree and Baze towered over him, scowling at the white archway out into the street.

“Another day at least,” he agreed. “We’ll have to find shelter out in the desert.”

“Or we could stay in these catacombs?”

He met her eyes once more, and seemed to consider his next words carefully. “Perhaps. Jyn,” he pushed away from the wall and stepped closer. “Are you alright?”

 _Fine_ was on the tip of her tongue, _of course, I wasn’t even injured..._ but something froze the words in her throat, and she found herself clenching her jaw tight and staring at his chest blankly. “Why did they do it?” she asked in a low, strained voice that sounded foreign even to her own ears. “Why destroy the Dome? Why even come to Jedha at all?”

“I…don’t know,” he said after a moment. She saw his hand twitch, like he started to reach out to her and then stopped himself. “Maybe when we get back, Command will know something.”

Of course he would think that. Of course. He was Intelligence, and high ranking at that, if they sent him on operations that lasted half a year without oversight. _How does it feel,_ she wondered, _to be so secure in your place? To know that you belong somewhere?_  A short, harsh bark of cynical laughter tore from Jyn’s throat. “Well, that will be nice for _you_ , won’t it, Captain?” She turned away, and the knots in her chest were tight again, threatening to strangle her now with her own fury and a strange, inexplicable grief. “But cannon fodder doesn't rate that kind of information.”

It wasn’t really a fair thing to say, but the helpless rage in her chest didn’t care. If Command had known anything at all about the Empire’s plans for Jedha, then sending them all here had either been an unforgivable fuck up, or someone’s really terrible attempt at a counter-strike. Neither prospect put her in much of a good mood, and she didn't appreciate the reminder that she didn't matter enough to ever be told one way or another. She'd never really been a part of the Partisans, and she'd never really been a part of the Alliance. Even if she survived this mess, she'd just find herself killing time around the base until they found somewhere else to send her, useful but expendable, a single lone soldier in a war against an Empire so powerful they could rip apart an ancient city without fear of even mild protest. 

So no, it wasn't fair to take her rage out on Cassian, but then, when had _fair_ ever meant anything in her life, anyway?

She marched across the garden towards the recruits without waiting to hear whatever the captain would say. Lorga saw her coming and started to force herself back to her feet. Both Jyn and Baze had to grab her and haul her up, and Jyn let Baze brace her while she went to help Inkari up, too. The big Lasat groaned as he struggled to get his feet under him, and Maddel gripped his hand and muttered, “Come on, big guy, rise for honor, remember?”

“ _To_ honor, Rodma,” Inkari replied in a labored voice, though he smiled at her weakly. “’How can I rise _to_ honor,’ not _for_.”

" _And though life's path be full of pain, you must rise up for honor's gain_ ," Sanduni smiled encouragingly. 

"Yeah, yeah, _rise up, live, love, fight, then die_ , we know," Lorga groaned. "Less talking, more rising."

“Move out,” the captain said curtly when everyone was on their feet and braced for travel. “Sergeant Hallik and Master Chirrut are on point. The rest of you, loose formation, we don't have time to space it out anymore. Kay, stay close to Inkari.”

“Considering that I am currently his primary means of mobility,” Kay replied a touch dourly, “that hardly needs to be said.”

“We are nearly there, friends,” Chirrut called back so they could all hear. “Do not lose hope.”

The entrance to the catacombs was three stone arches built into the wall of another small, closed-off garden. The arches were made of several white stones slotted into the wall, but the wall itself was covered in a mural depicting people in brown robes with glowing, colorful swords. All of the swords were pointing downward, drawing the eyes down to a single point on the wall. It took Jyn a moment to pick out that the colorful green, blue, yellow, and purple patterns almost obscured the stone door in the middle of the central arch.

Chirrut reached out and traced a hand over the patterns, until he hovered gently over a small grey tile cut in the shape of a star, which was the focal point of all those shining swords. “Tread cautiously,” he told Jyn over his shoulder, and his smile was suddenly edged. “This is the kingdom of the dead.” He pressed the star, and the stone door opened inward with the scraping of stone over stone.

A long tunnel stretched into darkness in front of them. Long scrolls of Old Jedhan script were carved into the stone walls, and here and there she caught the glimmer of Kyber crystals embedded in the stone. Dimly, she could make out a divide in the corridor, where it branched off into two equally impenetrably dark paths. A rush of cool air ruffled Jyn’s hair, smelling of stone and water and dust. Jyn hadn't really considered what to expect when the Guardians had offered this place as an escape. She hadn't considered what she was signing herself up for.

 _Catacombs_ , she told herself, forcing her limbs to unlock and her feet to move forward, following Chirrut into the shadows. _Of course they were going to be caves, you witless idiot._

Behind her, the others climbed through the narrow doorway, gradually blocking the sunlight until she heard Baze say, “Everybody in?” And then the scraping of stone over stone, and the door swung shut again.

Jyn swallowed, closed her eyes, and fumbled for the little flashlight she carried in her belt. She could hear others doing the same, Maddel and Baze both carried small lights clipped to their belts, and the captain had one in the inside pocket of his coat. She kept her eyes closed until her own little light was on, then forced herself to look. It was a relief to see how bright it was with four – no, five, the droid apparently had a light built into his cranial that was almost ridiculously bright for its size – lights all shining in the stone corridor.

The catacombs were bigger than she’d expected, too; as they shuffled their cautious way forward and down the sloping path, the corridor widened and the ceiling arched up and away. The carvings on the walls grew more dense as they went, and here and there she saw what looked like metal and stone boxes – coffins, she guessed – embedded in the stonework.

“This is where the Temple monks come to lay rest the remains of the honored dead,” Chirrut told them all pleasantly, as if they were on a tour rather than running for their lives. “It is a place of peace, and respect.”

“It’s beautiful,” Sanduni breathed, and belatedly Jyn remembered that Ryloth had a very reverential attitude towards burial grounds and honoring the dead.

“Unless these catacombs are shielded against Imperial ground-piercing GSM listening devices,” Kay said from the back of their procession, “I would advise we reduce noise until we are significantly further below the surface of the ground.”

“Take us as far out of the city as we can go, Master Chirrut,” the captain said. “Then we’ll stop for the night.”

‘As far as we can go’ turned out to be about two kilometers, by Jyn’s estimate. As they traveled deeper, the cool air turned almost bitterly cold, and every sound they made echoed in the wide corridors and occasional round chambers they passed. Inkari’s labored breathing only got louder and harsher, and Lorga's steps were more uneven and heavy, until at last the captain called a halt. They settled in one of the round chambers were Chirrut assured them almost no bodies were interred. Kay let Inkari slide down against one of the walls, and then loped to the entrance of the alcove and positioned himself in the opening, facing outward and on guard. The recruits crowded around their wounded comrade, Sanduni in particular fussing with his bandages and checking his stitches. Maddel pulled back his sweater and swore, because apparently he’d popped about six of those stitches running earlier, which sent Sanduni off on a long scold because he hadn’t mentioned it.

“'We are carved to endure the rough paths of life',” Inkari started to say, but she cut him off in a sharp tone that Jyn hadn’t heard her use yet.

“Don’t quote _The Anguish and The Elation_ at me, Jak,” she snapped. “I don’t care how many muscles you have, they aren’t any good if you can’t keep the blood inside.”

“Just let her poke at the stitches,” Lorga grunted at him. "Easier than struggling."

Jyn left them to fuss; there was nothing she could do for the injured at this point.

The Guardians had withdrawn to the other side of the chamber, both sitting crosslegged against the wall and speaking in low, intent voices. She thought she heard Baze snarl _if the Force wills atrocities, then it is not worthy of our faith_ – and quickly turned away, trying not to hear any more. Nothing she could do there, either.

There was only one person left to check on. He had settled against the very back of the alcove, partially hidden from the rest behind a (thankfully empty) stone coffin that had been left jutting out from the wall. He had his small emergency light clipped to his shoulder, and it illuminated his rifle in pieces on his lap as he diligently cleaned the barrel.

Jyn hesitated, but the flare of anger from before had died down to embers under the crushing darkness and silence of the catacombs. She walked over and slumped down beside him without speaking, and pulled her own blaster out to check that it was in working order. She considered breaking it down for a cleaning, too, but her hands felt heavy and clumsy. It was in good working order anyway.

She tucked the weapon away and stared at her hands instead, listening to the soft click of his rifle as he snapped the pieces together and finally set it down on the ground beside him. Around the edge of the stone coffin, the recruits were shuffling themselves together into a heap, flipping off Maddel’s small light and throwing their jackets over themselves in an attempt to share body heat. Jyn could see Sanduni curled up between Lorga and Inkari, her head resting on Lorga’s shoulder. Maddel was leaning against Inkari’s other side, her arms around her knees and her face buried in them. Further down the wall, Baze had snapped off his light and both the Guardians were leaning against each other, though she couldn’t tell if they were sleeping or simply carrying on their argument too quietly for her to hear.

Slowly, Jyn reached up and switched off her own flashlight, tucking it into her pocket and forcing her fingers to uncurl, to leave it put away. Then there was only Kay’s headlamp illuminating the corridor outside the alcove, and the bright spot of light on the captain’s lap. The only sound was the soft murmur of voices from the recruits as they whispered between themselves, and the faint whirr of K2SO’s internal processors across the chamber.

Cassian crooked his knees up and laid his hands flat against his thighs. “You are not cannon fodder,” he said harshly, without preamble.

Jyn nodded, too tired and too tense for anything else. She waited to see what else he would say, but he stayed silent, only his fingers flexing restlessly against his legs, curling into fists and laying flat again.

Finally, she rolled her head to the side and looked up at him through her eyelashes. He was glaring at his hands, his jaw a hard, unforgiving line and his eyes shadowed. The bright white light of his flashlight washed out his skin, making the dark circles under his eyes stark in comparison. If that’s how it made _him_ look, she thought idly, then she probably looked like a ghost, or a skeleton. Almost appropriate, considering where they were.

The reminder that she was essentially in a mass grave raised goosebumps across her skin (or perhaps it was just the cold of the catacombs, catching up to her now that she wasn’t moving any more), and she shivered.

That seemed to snap him out of whatever foul place his thoughts had taken him, and he unclipped his flashlight from his jacket. He held it up and met her eye, waiting. Jyn nodded reluctantly, and he snapped it off.

She didn’t flinch as they plunged into near total darkness, but she locked her eyes across the room at the light of Kay’s headlamp that wasn’t blocked by his metal body. The recruits were still talking, and she thought Inkari was maybe reciting one of his poems for them.

Next to her, she could hear the captain shifting his weight, settling in for the night. He stopped after a moment, and she assumed he had gone to sleep until she felt his hand on her shoulder. “Come here,” he said, and his voice was still quiet but the tone brooked no argument. Jyn thought about refusing anyway, just on principle, but… _fuck it_. It was dark, and cold, and smelled like damp stone and ancient death. Jyn let him pull her closer, expecting to him to maybe loop his arm over her shoulders or tuck her against his side. To her surprise, though, he pulled her right into his lap, sitting her between his knees and leaning her back against his chest. She heard the zipper of his parka slide open, and then he bundled her into the jacket with him as much as he could, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in tight.

Jyn stayed still and uncertain for a moment, then with a defeated sigh, allowed herself to relax back against him. She crossed her arms against her stomach and let her head fall back against his shoulder. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”

Something warm pressed lightly against her throat, and Jyn closed her eyes tight. Cassian kissed the side of her neck gently, and then tilted his head to do it again, a little higher. He trailed his mouth slowly up towards her ear, and it took Jyn a minute to realize what he was doing.

For the first time since they’d left Yashfeen’s garage, she felt her mouth curl into a real smile, and the knots in her chest finally, mercifully, unwind from around her heart.

He pressed his mouth against her earlobe, sighing just enough for her to feel his breath rushing across her ear and through her hair. Jyn shivered again, though this time not from cold, and turned her head to press her lips against his temple. “Payback?” she mouthed against his skin.

He smiled, and kissed the soft spot just below her ear. Jyn shivered again, and fought to keep her breath from hitching. She didn’t know exactly how good Inkari’s hearing really was. Or Lorga’s. Or Chirrut’s. Or, shit, _Kay’s_.

“Happy now?” Jyn breathed, glaring in the darkness at the top of his head.

“Depends,” he murmured, kissing his way back down her neck. His hands were tight on her upper arms, his legs warm on either side of her own.

Jyn unclenched one hand and reached up tentatively in the dark until she found his cheek, slipping her fingers up into his hair. “Not a dream.”

He nodded, she could feel the brush of his beard against her neck as he did, and then he tugged aside her scarf. He leaned down and pressed a hard kiss to the curve of her neck, then pulled her collar slightly askew and kissed her shoulder, too. “Good.”

Jyn bit her lip and clamped her thighs tightly together. “Consider yourself avenged, Captain,” she muttered, and he huffed a soft laugh against her.

“For now,” she thought he said, and then he tucked her scarf securely around her neck and leaned his head back against the wall, his hands stilled again.

From across the room, Lorga suddenly growled in exasperation and said, “Alright already, we’re all true companions in adversity, for the love of howling moons, Jak, _no more poetry!_ ”

“Heathen,” Inkari replied mildly, and Sanduni giggled tiredly.

Jyn laughed, too, and felt Cassian’s chest rumble against her back. She made a point of wiggling her hips against him slightly as if she were simply trying to settle down (and grinned in the darkness at the way his muscles tensed at the movement and his hands flexed on her arms), then leaned back against his shoulder and willed herself to relax.

It took a little longer than she was willing to admit, but eventually the heat in her lower body dissipated enough that she could simply enjoy the warmth of the rest of him, and Jyn drifted into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What terrible days we must expect to endure / as a price for this decay all around us” = [“Chant of the Innocents"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=65&issue=4&page=26) by Alan Dugen during WWII. The poem is largely about what the ordinary people in a war, the ones doing every day work like the mechanics and the janitors, will remember when it’s over. I adapted it, of course. 
> 
> “May your heart flourish like a wildflower” = paraphrase of Nikita Gill’s [”Hearts Like Wildflowers”](https://www.scoopwhoop.com/Nikita-Gill-Poems/#.1sajmpu57). Inkari has a bit of a thing for poetry, even when it doesn’t always fit the situation (in his mind, poetry fits every situation).
> 
> The “wisdom stagnates / power blinds” argument that Baze and Chirrut have is based on [the Grey Jedi Code](http://swfanon.wikia.com/wiki/Gray_Jedi_Code), because I couldn’t find anything that explicitly stated what the Guardians considered their own code, but some mentions that they believed more in “balance” than in “light side/good side” doctrine. I adapted it a little, because the Guardians are not Jedi, so they would change things slightly. 
> 
> _nȗ láng_ = Mandarin Chinese for “female wolf” or “wolf girl” (or so the internet tells me – feel free to correct me). In Star Wars, we’ll go with “old Jedhan dialect that Baze speaks when he’s feeling particularly grumpy.”
> 
> “This is the kingdom of the dead” = The famous Paris catacombs have [this inscription](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entrance_to_the_catacombs_Paris_France.JPG) over many of the entrances. 
> 
> _The Anguish and the Elation_ is my goofy reference to [_The Agony and the Ecstasy_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Agony_and_the_Ecstasy_\(novel\)), which is about one of the most _extra_ sculptors to ever carve a super-buff Jesus.


	12. Partner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an angst-heavy chapter for several reasons, and I tried to make it as coherent as possible. There's also a lot of cuddling, which I made no attempt to mitigate.

It ought to bother her, when Jyn snapped awake to find herself essentially trapped in a human cage. Cassian’s arms were locked around her waist, and they’d both slumped in their sleep so that they were leaning against the stone coffin. His legs were still bent on either side of her hips, and the sideways lean meant his right leg was pressing down on her, effectively pinning her. Jyn had spent every day of her life since she was eight in terror of being attacked while she was vulnerable. So when her eyes snapped open to near-total darkness to feel a solid weight holding her down, she ought to have instinctively fought like a mad thing to get free.

She didn’t, and some part of her was surprised. The rest of her mind was occupied with why she had woken up in the first place.

Cassian was shaking, his body shuddering so hard that Jyn felt a brief flash of panic because _shit_ he was having a fucking _seizure_. But then she heard him mumbling something incoherent against her hair, and knew that he couldn’t be having a seizure if he was still talking. He was whispering something over and over in a low, rough voice, a short phrase, and she strained to pick out what it was. If she woke him up, there was a good chance he would shout or make some other big noise that would wake everyone else. There was also a chance he would attack her (the way she should have attacked him when she woke up, sleepy and uncertain of where she was, with a strange weight pinned against her), so she didn’t want to do anything too sudden. He might even resent it; some people didn’t handle anyone knowing about their nightmares well (Jyn had punched the last person who had asked why she sometimes cried in her sleep).

It might be best just to let him ride it out, and later they could pretend it had never happened.

His head jerked a little, bringing his mouth nearer to her ear, and finally she could hear what he was saying.

“I had to,” he whispered against her hair, and there was a wavering, desperate note in his voice. “I had to. _I had to_.”

Shit.

Alright, if she held really still and spoke softly, he might not strangle her before he woke up all the way.

She tried to be slow and gentle as she lifted her hands to grasp his wrists, but the moment she touched him, he froze. Even his chest went still against her back.

Then he drew in a harsh breath and held it for a beat before he let it out, his muscles losing a little of their unnatural rigidity. “Sorry,” he mumbled against her ear, barely loud enough for her to hear. Reluctantly, he started to pull his arms and legs away, pushing like he meant to right them both and then get up and walk away.

Jyn tightened her grip on his wrists and stubbornly lay exactly where they’d fallen, blatantly refusing his cues to sit up.

He froze again, then took a deep breath and relaxed marginally against her back. She felt his head drop as he pressed his face into her shoulder. Jyn tugged until his arms were around her shoulders, and then she let go and tentatively tried to run her hands along his thighs in long, soothing strokes, just like he had on her back, before. She must have done it right, because he huddled closer around her in response.

“Sorry,” he whispered again, this time against her shoulder. “Nightmare.”

She nodded slightly.  Vaguely, she could see the dim shine of K2SO’s lamp still pointing steadfastly out into the tunnels of the catacombs. To the side, she could hear the heavy breathing of her four recruits, all still out like lights, although one of them was shifting restlessly in their sleep. The two Guardians were completely silent, but she could just see the outline of Chirrut’s shoulder, his staff jutting over it, in the gloom.

She felt Cassian swallow hard, his eyes squeezed shut. His muscles were tense against her, his jawline hard, his breathing steady but too deep. She wondered what odds Kay would calculate that Cassian would sleep again tonight.

Jyn turned her head and pressed her lips against his temple again. “Hate it when that happens,” she whispered back, trying to sound light and nonjudgmental.

She could feel his mouth moving against her shoulder as he spoke. “Always at the worst time.” His voice was level, but still strained. He was fighting the pull of the nightmare, trying not to dwell on whatever it had been about. She knew exactly how hard that could be. Her usual fallback was tactical assessments, and she’d be willing to believe it was the same for him. Since they were currently in ancient catacombs with a massive invasion force somewhere above their heads and no communication with any friendly forces available, the tactical situation only took about three seconds to diagnose as “pretty kriffing bad.” Not much help in that direction.

So talking shop wasn’t going to work for him. In different circumstances, she might have tried something more physical, an outlet to let him blank his mind out entirely, but…well, there were a lot of people very close by, and some of them were dead. Jyn wasn’t much of a romantic, but there was a fucking _line._

Alright, she’d just have to get creative.

With her mouth still pressed lightly against his temple, she spoke in the softest, most casual tone she could muster. “You know, I was relieved that you weren’t really a Joreth.”

He didn’t respond for a moment, but then she felt his head lift slightly. “That so?”

“I knew a Joreth once,” she explained. “Sort of worked for him,” she corrected absently. “On Tatooine, Mos Eisley, I think.” She frowned into the darkness, struggling to recall the details of a six year old job. “A couple months before I joined the Alliance.”

“Rough place.” He didn’t move, but his arms were less vice-like around her, and she took that as a good sign.

“Guess so. I didn’t have lots of choices after-” Her voice came out more bitter than she intended, and she paused to bite her lip and breathe through the sudden swell of anger and grief.

“After Saw Gerrera abandoned you,” he said quietly, and Jyn repressed the flinch ruthlessly. He felt it anyway, because he sighed and murmured _sorry_ into her shoulder again.

She shook her head dismissively. “Yeah. That. Anyway, Joreth wanted me to steal a parts shipment or something from a high-ranking piece of skrog who worked for the Hutts. He really wanted the haul for some reason, but he was scared shitless to steal anything from a guy who worked for the Hutts, in case they took it as a theft from themselves.”

“But you weren’t worried?” She thought she could hear a hint of amusement in his whisper, so she let herself grin a little into the darkness.

“No. Hutts don’t give a rat’s arse about their employees. You can rob one of their people blind, and probably kill ‘em too, so long as it’s no one they consider property, like a slave.” She all but spat the last word, then remembered to keep her voice low and soft. She was trying to walk him away from a nightmare; invoking Outer Rim slavery would not help. “So, I took the job. Got the haul, didn't even have to fight the mark, and only blew up a few speeders and a couple of skirts in the process.”

“…skirts?”

“Yeah, see, the mark was an idiot, but he was kriffing paranoid. Had all kinds of security systems, droids. I could have hacked them, but, well, he also had a weakness for really pretty young things.”

Cassian’s muscles, gradually easing as she whispered against his skin, suddenly went tense again. “And you were just his type?” he asked carefully, as if the words were delicate glass.

Jyn flicked his leg with her fingers, hard enough to make him flinch. “Nope.”

He relaxed again. She waited until his hands unclenched against her shoulders, then she smirked. “The mark had three live-in girlfriends, and none of them really liked him, but he found them all from shitty places, and they saw him as their ticket out. He kept them cut off from everyone else, and they were far Outer Rim girls. None of them had met many people outside their families. So they thought he was the best that men had to offer.”

“On behalf of men, I am offended,” Cassian muttered.

Jyn hummed low in her throat. “They were lonely.”

“So you made friends?”

“I’m a people person,” she said dryly.

He lifted his head a little more, moving slowly, and rested his chin on her shoulder. “I noticed that,” he turned his head slightly so that he was speaking against her neck again. It was different, though; less a need for comfort and more…something else. Light, sweet, a little teasing. It wasn’t a sensation Jyn had ever been in a position to evaluate, before Cassian. She didn’t know what to call it, but she thought she might like it. She might like it a lot.

Jyn shivered, and felt his lips curve slightly in response. She kept her head turned towards him, though she couldn’t reach his temple anymore, and felt his cheek brush against hers.

“All I had to do was be nice to them,” she went on after a moment, “I even gave them a few datapads with holonet access, and they gave me his speeder keys and his schedule. I waited until he had an appointment somewhere, took the cargo, and blew the speeders covering my tracks. Easy day.”

“Easy day,” he echoed, and this time there was definitely a laugh lurking in his tone.

She smiled. Idly, she dragged her fingertips in lazy circles and swirls on his legs, tapping her thumb against him in a random rhythm. “I took a few small things from the load for myself, just in case Joreth didn’t want to pay up. Turned out to be bloody _prescient_ of me.”

“Because of course he tried to cheat you.”

Jyn lifted one hand and reached up blindly in the dark until she found his ear. She traced it with her fingertips. “Of course.” She considered, then mentally shrugged. “Tried to off me, actually.”

“But you had a plan for that too.”

Her grin grew wider. “Of course.”

“So you took the rest of the haul?”

“No. He got what he wanted, more or less. Took a chunk of him with me when I left, though,” she tapped his ear meaningfully, and he snorted softly.

“He take a chunk of you, too?”

Jyn grimaced, because that was a part of the story she’d intended to leave out. But it didn’t feel right to lie to him about it, so she shrugged a little in his arms and slipped her hand from his ear to his wrist again. She dragged his hand until it was resting on her torso, just below her left breast. She let go, and he immediately slipped his hand under her coat; his fingertips traced over the outline of the scar slashed across her ribs. He found it faster than she expected… but she’d forgotten that he’d seen it before. Jyn swallowed back the sudden urge to twist around in his arms as he stroked precisely along the edges of the scar he couldn’t see and probably couldn’t even feel through her layers of clothes. It was odd, she reflected, how something so light could feel so damn intimate. It was odd how something so new could feel so familiar _._

Karking hells, _odd._  What was wrong with her? In twenty-two years, Jyn had only ever trusted (only ever loved) three people, and every one of them left her in the mud. And now in one week, this total stranger somehow worked his way right through every careful defense and survival instinct she learned from abandonment after abandonment, and all she could fucking think about it was _oh, how odd_?

Desert fever, she thought resignedly. Swollen brain and delusions of affection. Probably terminal, with her luck.

His hand was still tracing her scar, his wrist brushing occasionally against the curve of her breast.

“So yeah, I’m glad you’re not really a Joreth,” she muttered, and turned her face away from his so he wouldn’t feel the heat in her cheeks. “He wasn’t exactly a good guy.”

Cassian’s hand stilled against her ribs, and then he pulled it away and propped it casually on his knee, though he left his other arm draped around her shoulders. He leaned his head back from her neck against the wall behind them, and his voice turned suddenly dismissive, almost mocking. “And you think I am?”

Jyn frowned, and this time she did twist out of his arms, pushing herself up to her knees and turning to face him. He let her go without resistance, though he stayed still as she braced her hands on his knees and glared at him. It was too dark to make out any of his features, but she could see the faint gleam of his eyes reflecting Kay’s head lamp. He was watching her, cloaked in shadows with his hands loose on his knees, his parka still unzipped and open to the cold.

Jyn opened her mouth - then snapped it closed again. What could she say? She’d known him less than six days, and most of that under an alias. She still didn’t even know his full name (maybe not any of it, because she’d known _Joreth_ was a lie, so maybe he’d thrown _Cassian_ at her just to see if she’d take it, maybe, maybe, maybe, and she still knew almost nothing about him). Odd, she thought again. This is all just too fucking _odd_.

The cold air of the catacombs scraped at her back where his warmth had been.

Finally, she reached over and groped _(very carefully_ ) for the zipper to his parka, and with a quick move, she zipped it back up.

In the shadows, she thought she saw him nod.

“Kay,” he called suddenly in a steady, clear voice. “Light, and report, please.”

Jyn pushed herself up to her feet and stepped back just as K2SO’s light swung inward, flooding the chamber bright white. One of the recruits groaned loudly, and the rest began to shuffle back into wakefulness. “It is currently one hour and seven minutes before sunrise.” The droid’s precise voice did more to snap Jyn back into the harsh reality of their situation than a bucket of cold water. “My sensors detected no movement within range, with the exception of small local vermin. However, it is highly unlikely that the lockdown has lifted. I recommend we continue with our evacuation plan.”

“Thank you, Kay.” The captain slung his rifle over his shoulder and stood in the middle of the chamber, sweeping a look around at his team. The recruits were moving a little faster, Jyn noted with a smirk, scrambling to get on their feet while their superior stood calmly watching them. The Guardians were both still sitting against the wall, but they looked awake and alert, Baze watching with hooded eyes and Chirrut smiling beatifically.

Jyn ran a hand over her hair to make sure she at least didn’t look like a drunk who slept in a gutter, and then she swiped her own blaster from where she’d left it on the ground by her feet and holstered it. She pulled her light and snapped it to her jacket, flicking it on and adding to Kay’s circle of light.

“Let’s go, people,” she cracked her best drill sergeant voice like a whip over the recruits, then stomped past the captain to grab Inkari and haul him upright. He moved even more stiffly than before, but his breathing sounded less pained, and his skin wasn’t quite as grey. Jyn held him carefully until Kay took his arm. “One third of your nutrient bar, no more,” Jyn told them flatly as she plucked Sanduni’s scarf from her shaking fingers and tied it properly around her purple head. “Three swallows of water, then stash the rest. We’re headed topside to the desert, and we’re on rationing from here on out.”

“How long will we have to stay out there?” Maddel took small, careful bites of her nutrient bar, making futile attempts to comb her hair back into her customary neat twist with one hand. To her left, Sanduni steadied Lorga on her good leg. To her right, the Guardians rose, equally gracefully, and moved smoothly towards the door as if they had just risen from a lovely nap on a soft mattress. Jyn tried not to scowl.

“Anywhere from a day to a week,” the captain said, watching the Guardians as well, and maneuvering behind them as they walked into the corridor. He planned to stick close to the unknowns in the lead, which meant he wanted Jyn to take rear guard.

“The length of the lockdown will likely depend on how long the Imperial Army takes to hunt down the Guardians of the Whills to their satisfaction,” K2SO supplied helpfully.

Jyn looked up sharply, in time to see Cassian’s shoulders tighten and Baze’s glance backwards, his eyes narrow. “ _Kay_ ,” the captain said sharply.

“Guardians are not so easily _hunted_ ,” the big monk growled, but then Chirrut’s hand was on his arm, and he cut himself off with a fierce glower.

“All will be as the Force has willed it,” the blind monk said quietly. He turned his head as he walked out into the corridor, and though his mouth still curled into a slight smile, but there was a hard edge to his voice that grated against Jyn’s nerves and lit up every warning sign in her brain.

The captain slung his assembled rifle over his shoulder to hang at his hip, easily in reach. “Let’s move.”

The catacombs, so wide and decorative before, began to narrow down the further inward they walked. The high arched ceiling dropped low and flat overhead, until Lorga’s head was almost brushing against it. Jyn saw the Shistavanen flatten her ears and hunch her shoulders reflexively, huddling tighter against Sanduni. The walls moved steadily inward too, and the decorative scroll work and intricately carved stone coffins vanished. The walls became rougher and rougher, until they looked lumpy, almost unfinished. The team was forced to move almost single file, the Guardians in the lead, then the captain, then Lorga and Sanduni, Maddel, Kay and Inkari, and finally, Jyn. Their various lights cast a yellow-white hue over everything, which Jyn would have likened to flames, except it was so kriffing _cold_.

An hour into the catacombs, Maddel suddenly gasped.

“What is it?” the captain asked immediately, his voice calm but hard.

“Bones,” Maddel replied in a quavering voice that Jyn had not yet heard from the self-assured woman. “It’s _bones_.”

Oh. With a feeling of resignation, Jyn glanced at the narrow walls, which she had studiously _not_ been thinking about. As she turned, her light swung sideways, illuminating the rough stone, and Jyn saw that what she’d vaguely been thinking of as rough bumps in the stone were actually the cracked contours of skulls.

There were hundreds of them, embedded in the stone as if they had been here for so long that the walls had simply grown over them. They weren’t all human, either; she saw some with holes in the top that looked like lekku, and some had ridges, horns, or too many eye sockets. Some were wildly non-human, some Jyn couldn’t even identify. But every last one of them was facing outward in the corridor, grinning the triumphant smile of the dead.

“This place must be so old,” Sanduni whispered loudly, her tone reverent.

“Ancient,” Chirrut informed them all serenely. “Some of these people are even older than Baze.”

The big monk grunted.

“Is it much further?” Maddel asked in a tight voice. “We’ve been walking a long time,” she added defensively, as if someone had accused her of something.

“Not too far,” Chirrut reassured her. “These are the original catacombs, just outside the city walls.”

“Our ancestors dug these catacombs from the base of the cliffs,” Baze said. “They built them into the foundation of the city, and ordered their bones to be laid here, that they might bear the weight of the Temple even in death.”

“And to save space up top,” Lorga grunted softly, but Sanduni hushed her.

The procession slowed, and Jyn peered around Kay and Inkari’s combined bulk to see that the Guardians had stopped. “The first Guardians are here,” Baze rumbled. “They fought the Dark Warriors thousands of years ago, and purged this land to make it clean. They bled on this soil. They conquered this stone.” His voice grew louder, not a shout, but a thunder that rolled through the narrow tunnels. “They sleep here, in honor.”

“And now you would bleed and conquer and sleep, as well,” Chirrut replied, and though his tone was light, there was a subtle edge to it. Jyn found herself resting her hands on her truncheons, uneasy and chilled by more than the cold tunnel air. “Well,” the blind monk tapped his staff once against the stone floor, and the metal tip sent a ringing note through the tunnels. “I suppose I could use a nap myself.”

“I would honor the vow I have made,” Baze growled. “I would fight the defilers of my city.”

“You and I must have taken different vows,” Chirrut replied, still in that too-pleasant tone. “Mine devoted me to the protection of NiJedha.”

Jyn still couldn’t see anyone’s face, but Cassian’s shoulders were nearly rigid and his hand was resting on his rifle. In front of him, Baze turned to glare at Chirrut. _“As did mine!”_

“Ah, then it seems the difference is in the interpretation.” Chirrut cocked his head to the side, his staff resting casually on his shoulder. “You seem to think NiJedha is a bunch of buildings.”

“It is buildings,” Baze thundered. “It is the Temple, the Dome, the Paths. The history of its walls! What is NiJedha, Chirrut, if not buildings?”

“People,” Chirrut said quietly, but the edge in his voice was now fully sharpened, and even Jyn flinched from the cut.

The tunnels were silent.

And then, slowly, Cassian stepped forward. “The Empire,” he said carefully, almost deferentially, “will destroy both.”

The monks turned to face him, and even from the back, Jyn could feel the freeze from their identical expressions. “The captain would prefer we turn around and perhaps strike the Imperials now?” Chirrut’s smile was all sharp lines and sharper teeth.

“You are _guizi_ ,” Baze said shortly. “Outsider.”

Cassian held up his hands. “Yes, and I know nothing of your history or your vows,” he replied cautiously. “But I do understand the desire to fight, to protect something from that which would crush it. If you would fight them, but not here, not pointlessly in the streets where you will harm your own people as much as the enemy, perhaps there is another way.”

Jyn strained on her toes to see around her much taller recruits, but all she could see was Cassian’s back. After a short silence, Chirrut spoke again, and his voice was marginally thawed but allowed for no response as he said, “Thank you, Captain, but all is-”

“How?”

Chirrut cut off abruptly as Baze turned fully to face Cassian. Jyn could just see his face over the Cassian’s shoulder, eyes furrowed and jawline set as he glared at the rebel captain.

Cassian still had his hands raised, palms out, his voice almost soothing now as he replied. “If you came to the Alliance’s headquarters, met with some of our leaders, your knowledge and experience in the city would be invaluable to any counterstrike. The Alliance has forces,” he went on quickly, before either monk could respond. “Soldiers, shuttles, weapons.” He gestured to the bowcaster slung over Baze’s shoulder. “Yours took some damage, didn’t it? You’ll need a replacement, but more than that, you’ll need support. You don’t have to fight this alone.” His voice turned darker, sadder. “You can’t.”

Another silence; Jyn realized she was holding her breath, listening as hard as she could. Ahead of her, she could see all her recruits staring hard at the Guardians. Lorga’s ears were pricked up again. Sanduni had one hand over her mouth. Baze was staring hard at Cassian, and even in the dim light, Jyn thought she could see something like rage and desperation at war in his face.

The ground shook overhead, the distant echo of an explosion. The Partisans, perhaps, or the remaining Guardians had picked another fight. A thin cloud of dust sifted down from the low ceiling, and Lorga’s ears flattened again.

From somewhere behind the captain’s silhouette, Chirrut spoke tonelessly. “The exit is this way.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and marched smartly off.

The sun was only just rising when Jyn’s team passed through the small, unadorned stone door in the base of the cliffs below Jedha’s walls. It was weak light at best, pale and greyish in the dawn, but after the crushing darkness of the catacombs, it was nearly blinding.  The flat, reddish sand of the desert made it worse, reflecting the light back and stinging her eyes. The temperature change was uncomfortable, too, shifting from the almost bitter cold of the catacombs to the warm, summery air of the desert in daytime. Jyn shivered slightly from the contrast, then resolutely started to adjust her clothing, making sure her skin was fully covered wherever possible.

“This, Captain, is where we must leave you,” Chirrut said, sounding cheerful.

“Understood,” the captain replied. Jyn wondered if anyone else could hear the undercurrent of disappointment in it.

“So now what?” Maddel asked, shading her eyes with one hand.

Jyn watched Cassian’s face, and saw the briefest flash of uncertainty there before he blinked and it was gone. “We’ll need shelter,” he said calmly, turning to look out at the desert.

“Water,” Jyn added, moving to stand by him and scanning the terrain, marking the distant mountains in the east, what looked like crumbling ruins to the south. “Or a moisture vaporator.”

“Somewhere within a day’s walk,” he shrugged at her questioning look, “so we can respond quickly if we get a pickup call from home.”

“Close shelter, water, ammo recharge,” Jyn ticked off her fingers, and then held up her hand to him and added a fourth finger, “comm booster?”

“Ideally.” He nodded at her hand. “Kay might be able to get a message through.”

“It may not be safe to attempt a signal,” Kay said from behind them, Inkari still leaning heavily against his metal arm. “But I will be unable to make an assessment until we are actually in possession of a comm booster.” Jyn rolled her eyes slightly at his distinctly disapproving tone.

“You reprogram him to be such a downer?” She asked Cassian in a deliberately loud whisper.

“My analysis has no negative or positive bias,” Kay replied immediately, and if a droid could bristle, Jyn thought, that’s what it would look like. “I use purely objective tactical-”

“She’s teasing you, Kay,” Cassian cut in, and he shot Jyn a sideways glance. “Please don’t harass him,” he added in an undertone to her. “As a favor to me.”

“Sir, would _that_ be of use?” Inkari interrupted before Jyn could reply, lifting a muscled arm and pointed out into the desert. Jyn squinted into the distance, but whatever he was pointing at was out of her sight range.

Cassian’s eyes were also narrowed as he peered into the bright mass of dunes, and after a moment he called, “Kay, a long range scan, please?”

A faint whir as the droid activated his macrobinocular lenses, and then Kay said, “It appears to be a space craft of some kind. Most likely it is significantly damaged.”

Jyn met Cassian’s eyes. _A ship_ , she thought. Might be something there the scavengers hadn’t already taken. At worst, shelter. At best, a chance to get off Jedha. Most likely, some gear that could help them. He seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because his gaze flicked from the desert to the ragged recruits and back to Jyn’s face. He raised an eyebrow in question, and she nodded. Better than wandering the empty wastes.

“Kay, mark the location,” the captain ordered. “The rest of you, prepare to move out.”

Next to her, Lorga shook her head hard enough to flap her ears again, then started tugging at her jacket, pulling it off and making as if to toss it aside. Jyn’s hand snapped out, fastening on Lorga’s wide wrist. “Keep it,” she said shortly. “It will protect you from the heat.”

The towering Shistavanen stared at her. “Uh, Sarge,” she said hesitantly. “I’m furry.”

Jyn rolled her eyes. “Ever been in a desert?”

Lorga shrugged. “No. But it’s hot. I’m going to roast in all these clothes.”

“Shistavanen fur is translucent,” Jyn told her. “It won’t protect you from the sunlight. Exposing your skin to the sun will make you dehydrate faster. Stay covered,” she pointed at Sanduni, who reluctantly stopped unwinding her head scarf and rebuttoned the top buttons of her over-large shirt. “Stay hydrated,” Jyn jabbed her finger next to Inkari, who dutifully pulled his canteen from his belt and took a sip. “Stay alive,” Jyn dropped her finger but turned and stared at the captain, who had a faint smile hovering in the corner of his mouth as he watched.

“Sounds like the sergeant knows what she’s doing,” he said.  Jyn waited, chin tilted in question. After a beat, he nodded, and made a small gesture with his fingers like he was tossing something to her. Jyn turned on her heel and surveyed the group.

“Maddel,” she said after a moment. “You still have that mascara you were hauling around?” The other woman startled, then nodded hesitantly, reaching into her coat and fishing through the pockets until she pulled out a small tube. “Break it open, and rub some of the black under your eyes,” Jyn pointed carefully. “It reduces glare, prevents sunblindness. Spread it around, too. Lorga and Inkari won’t need it, but we will. Check your water canteens, take one drink every ten minutes, no exceptions. No point saving water out here, if you get sunstroke we won’t have enough to revive you.” She tilted her head at Cassian and dropped her drill sergeant voice. “You have something to cover your head?”

This time his mouth definitely twitched upward, and he reached up wordlessly to tug at his hood. Jyn scowled at the fur lining, but his smile broadened, and with a flick of his fingers, he unsnapped the fuzzy material and pulled it out, tucking it into his pack and leaving only the thinner blue material of the hood. Jyn nodded approvingly. Handy thing, that parka. She pulled up her own scarf, the stars still tucked on the inside, but this time to protect them from the fading power of the bright sun.

“Better to travel at night,” she said quietly to Cassian as he finished stripping the fur lining from the rest of his coat and stuffed it into his pack. “Now that we’re out of the city.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t stay here, or we risk perimeter patrols picking us up,” he pointed up at the walls looming far overhead. “We’ll switch to night travel as soon as we can afford it.” He turned to the Guardians, who were standing near the stone door to the catacombs, Chirrut staring out at the desert blankly and Baze glowering at the sandy ground beneath his boots. “Thank you,” Cassian said formally, “for your aid. I wish you good luck.”

Jyn could see the tension in his shoulders, the careful way he scoured both of the monks’ faces as if checking for signs of betrayal. It probably didn’t sit well with him, sending two strangers who knew his face back into an Imperial-occupied city. A dark, paranoid part of her agreed; if the Imps were rounding up the monks instead of just killing them, who knew what they would drag from the men before their inevitable executions?

On the other hand…well, what choice did they have? They couldn’t force the two combat-trained monks to join them on their trek into the sand. And anyway, the monks had no more than a physical description, a fake name, and no idea that Cassian was anything other than a random rebel foot soldier. It would have to be enough to protect him.

“And you, Captain,” Chirrut replied gravely. He tapped his staff gently on the stone, and the catacomb door slid open. He stepped inside, and then paused.

For some reason, Jyn’s stomach clenched tight, as if anticipating a blow. Under her shirt, her Kyber crystal dug into her collarbone.

Chirrut angled his head slightly over his shoulder. “Baze?”

The big monk hadn’t moved. The tight feeling in her stomach grew worse, and she reached up to wrap her hand around her necklace.

“Baze.” Chirrut’s voice turned brittle again, and somehow the angles of his face and body seemed sharper, harder, like the blades of knives - though he did not move.

Something warm brushed Jyn’s free hand, and without thinking she twisted her wrist and latched onto Cassian’s fingers with a death grip. The tight feeling spread from her gut to her chest.

Slowly, ponderously, Baze lifted his head and looked at Chirrut.

“No,” he said.

Cassian rubbed his thumb across the back of Jyn’s hand soothingly, and she tried to force herself to loosen her grip on him and the crystal. It didn’t work. Her heart was pounding hard, reacting to the tension in the rest of her body, and shit, she didn’t even know _why_.

Chirrut seemed to draw himself up, although he still had not moved a muscle. “This is our home,” he said, still in that fragile, edged voice. “We must follow the path the Force has laid for us.”

“This _is_ our home,” Baze echoed, and his words moved as heavily as his body, as if he were dragging great stones with each one. “And if the Force demands that I sit quietly while thieves and killers destroy it,” he shook his head, “then I say…no.”

The silence stretched. Cassian’s thumb moved across Jyn’s hand again, and despite herself she leaned a little closer to him. This felt wrong, terribly wrong, in ways she could not articulate.

“Baze,” Chirrut said one last time, and there was love in that single word, and fear; it was a prayer, a summons, an argument, a thousand other things that Jyn could not understand – and it was a question, too.

Baze looked at Chirrut, his face dark, his fists clenched. Then he closed his eyes. “I cannot,” he said. “I _will_ not. _No._ ”

She was probably cutting circulation off to Cassian’s fingers, she was gripping so tightly. He kept his thumb running in slow circles on her hand, and didn’t try to pull away.

Carefully, Chirrut set his staff onto the ground inside the stone doorway. He took a deep, slow breath, and facing into the darkness of the catacombs, he said, “May the Force-” He paused, cleared his throat. “May the Force of others be with you,” he finished firmly.

And then he was gone.

His partner stood silently, his eyes and his rage unfocused, and Jyn wondered vaguely why she felt like she was about to throw up.

Cassian was watching her.

Right. The desert. Survival.

She didn’t look up at him, but she squeezed Cassian’s hand one more time, then pulled away crisply, stepping towards the recruits and plucking the newly-broken mascara tube from Maddel’s palm. She smeared a small amount of the gunk under each eye, then turned to the big Guardian. She held out the tube and waited until he turned his eyes from the closed stone door to her face. “Time to go,” she said. After a long moment, he reached out and took the tube from her, turning to stare at it like he didn’t know what it was for. Jyn should have left it alone, but the tightness in her chest pulled harder, and she found herself gripping his wrist until he looked up at her again.

“My teacher,” Baze grated in a harsh voice, and then he swallowed and said, “my teacher once told me that every being must walk their own path according to their faith.”

Jyn tilted her head. “What do you believe in?” she asked cautiously, uncertain what he was getting at.

The Guardian looked up at the city towering above them, and then further, to the Star Destroyer that even now seemed to fill the sky. “Not in that,” he growled, pointing upwards. “Not in a power that allows _that_ to happen.”

Internally, Jyn agreed. It had been a long time since she’d believed in anything but her skill with a truncheon and her burning hatred of the people who had torn apart her life, and torn apart the galaxy while they were at it. But she could still remember the exact moment she’d realized that her mother’s Force was no use at all to a frightened little girl, no use at all to anyone, and it was not a good memory.

So instead of agreeing, she simply squeezed his wrist for a moment and muttered, “Sorry.”

And then they were moving, down from the stone walls and out into the unforgiving desert.

The trek to the downed ship was exactly what Jyn expected it to be: long, tedious, gritty, and hot. To her relief, her recruits were all fairly game about it, no unnecessary whining or dragging their feet. Lorga and Inkari were in excellent physical condition despite their injuries, and their long legs helped them pick through the shifting sand without much trouble. Maddel slogged grimly through the dunes with her head bent. Sanduni floundered, breathing hard and constantly tugging at her ill-fitting clothes, but she and Lorga kept their arms linked, and the Twi’lek’s mouth stayed closed in a determined line. The captain took rear guard, his rifle slung under his arm and his eyes restless. Baze walked alongside him, and by contrast, he stared straight ahead. Kay plodded next to Inkari, allowing the big man to lean against his arm reluctantly, occasionally calling out course updates towards the coordinates.

Jyn ranged out in front of the party, scouting for water, easier paths, and enemies. The ship that Inkari had marked for them was somewhere to the east, towards the mountains. It was a relief (a disappointment) that it wasn’t more towards the ruins in the south. Somewhere in this endless desert, Saw Gerrera had set up a base of operations, she knew it. The ruins were exactly the kind of place he would have picked.

She didn’t want to see him. She wasn’t sure she’d survive seeing him. She _knew_ her team wouldn’t.

What would have happened, if the Partisans had taken her from the city the other day? Would Saw have killed her? Plied her for information? Smiled to see his protégé, wept for his lost child?

Apologized?

She snorted. Not bloody likely.

Her comm buzzed in her ear. “Everything all right, sergeant?”

Jyn blinked. She had been standing still too long, she realized, staring southward with what was probably a stupid expression on her face. “Yes, sir,” she replied in a clipped tone, scanning back along her team to make sure they were all there.

She turned east, and refused to look south again until they had reached the ship.

Or rather, the _wreck_ , Jyn corrected as they stumbled over the last dune and looked down at the burned out hulk of an old light freighter. It had the distinct saucer-shape of a Corellian model, and would have held six or seven people comfortably; it had top-mounted cockpit, but no weapons arrays. YT-1000, she guessed, or maybe a 1300. Hard to tell for sure, with half of its hull torn away.

Jyn stood at the top of the dune as her team passed her, struggling through the sand towards the wreck.

“We’re certainly not escaping in that,” Maddel sighed as she crested the dune and caught sight of it. Jyn shook her head, then gestured for Maddel to go down.

“It was shot down,” the captain said as he walked up beside her. Jyn nodded. Together, they brought up the rear of the party, moving cautiously towards the blackened metal hull. “Carbon scoring on the port side.”

“Sheered through the engine,” Jyn agreed. “Standard Imperial targeting.”

“Not much sand inside, from what I can see. Can’t have been here more than a couple days.”

“Someone tried to outrun the lockdown.”

Cassian sighed. “They never made it out of atmosphere.” In a quieter voice, he asked, “What are the odds anyone inside survived the crash?”

“Thirteen percent,” Kay called from the base of the dune. Jyn resisted the urge to scowl – it seemed his hearing was a lot better than she’d thought.

“If we’re really lucky,” Cassian shoved his hood back and swiped at the sweat on his face, “there might be some water stores that didn’t burst on impact.”

“I’m hoping for a working vaporator.” She tapped her now-empty canteen thoughtfully. “Didn’t old smuggler ships like this always have atmo-vaporators built in?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but a sharp cry from the ship cut him off. It was Sanduni, standing in the opening of the torn hull and staring inward, her hands clutching at her chest.

_Thirteen percent_ , Jyn thought sourly as she and captain sprinted across the sand to their recruit. Terrible odds, all things considered.

“Oh no, oh no, no no no,” Sanduni was sobbing, although her eyes were dry. Shit, she was dehydrated.

“Hey,” Lorga was wobbling on one leg and tugging at Sanduni’s arm. “Come on, Yvette, come on, don’t look. Just…don’t look, okay? Come on.” She might as well have been talking to herself, though, because Sanduni didn’t move.

“Your canteen,” Jyn snapped at Lorga as she came up. “You still have water?”

“What?” Lorga wobbled again, clearly torn between trying not to fall over and trying not to balance herself on Sanduni’s shaking shoulder. “Oh, uh, yes?”

“Give,” Jyn held out her hand, staring at Lorga and refusing to look inside the wreck. Lorga unhooked her canteen unsteadily and held it out. There was only a little water left, but if Sanduni was too dehydrated to cry even when she was this distressed, then she was desperately in need of it.

Behind her, the captain moved slowly into the hole in the hull. “Kay,” he called out after a moment, his voice devoid of any emotion. “I need your help.”

Maddel rushed to help Inkari as K2SO plopped him unceremoniously on the sand and loped into the hull after the captain. With a grim scowl on his face, Baze dropped his damaged bowcaster to the dirt and strode into the wreck as well, his monk’s robes flaring around him as he went. Jyn shouldered between Lorga and Sanduni, jerking her head towards the others to move the hovering Shistavanen off.

As soon as she got between Sanduni and whatever was in the freighter, the Twi’lek shuddered and stumbled back a step, her arms flailing out wildly. Jyn caught her wrists easily and let the woman drop to her knees. “They’re dead,” Sanduni gasped. “They’re dead, Sarge, they’re all dead.”

Jyn pressed her lips together grimly and waited.

Sanduni closed her eyes and huddled forward, burying her face into her hands and shaking. “It was a family, not even soldiers, not even…they had…they’re so _little_ ,” she keened, and the wires around Jyn’s heart were back, winding tight and cutting in her.

“You need to drink,” she said as evenly as she could. “Here. Drink.”

She held the canteen up, but Sanduni didn’t respond. Too much, it was too much, the stress and the fear and the lack of sleep and the dehydration itself, it had all come crashing down on the poor girl at last. Shock, Jyn thought, she’s probably going into shock.

“No search parties,” Maddel said abruptly. Her voice didn’t shake as badly as Sanduni, but Jyn could hear the fragile balance in it, how close Maddel was to tipping over into the same frightened place as her fellow recruit. “No one came down to check for survivors.”

“They were busy,” Lorga snapped bitterly. “They had a whole city to invade, you know.”

“How can anyone fight this?” Sanduni’s voice was small and cracked, and she kept her face buried in her shaking hands. “How can anyone fight something so…” she shook her head against her hands. “The Empire is so big,” she whimpered. “And they can just kill people, and not even _care_ enough to _look_.”

Behind her, Jyn heard the slide of something heavy across the metal floor of the freighter. “Kay,” she heard Cassian’s muffled voice, “put them over here, with their mother.”

Under her scarf, her mother’s Kyber crystal felt hot against her skin, and in her head, a cold, cultured voice snapped, _they have a child. Find it!_

She dropped the canteen, reached out and latched onto the back of Sanduni’s lilac neck. She yanked, the harsh movement forcing the woman’s head up and startling her into opening her eyes wide. Out of the corner of her eye, Jyn saw Lorga jerk forward as if to interfere.

Jyn looked the Twi’lek square in the eye, drew her lips back into a sneer, and in a clear, fierce voice said, “ _Fuck them_.”

Lorga froze. Sanduni’s eyes widened and she stared as Jyn took a deep breath and let some of her own rage loose. “They _are_ big,” Jyn snarled. “They own half the fucking universe, and they kill people every day who get in the way, or who don’t fall in line. And they expect us to just _let_ them do it. They expect everyone to bow their heads and accept their fate, because they know it’s easier to lay down than it is to fight. It’s easier to die in silence than it is to live in protest.” Jyn swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry from more than just the desert heat. “But listen to me, Yvette Sanduni.” She shook the Twi’lek’s neck slightly, leaning in and glaring furiously. “We _survive_.” Jyn jabbed her free hand, hard, into Sanduni’s sternum. “We fight, and we steal, and we lie, and we claw our way out of their traps, and we drag as many people as we can with us, even when it hurts, even when it’s hard. Because the Empire is _wrong_. We will never bow our heads, we will never _let_ them murder, _we will not lay down and die.”_

She shook Sanduni one more time, just hard enough to make her point. “ _Fuck. Them_.”

Sanduni’s mouth quivered, her eyes still too wide and her breath ragged. But the wild, lost look on her face was slowly hardening into something new, so Jyn held her gaze and waited.

“F-fuck them,” Sanduni repeated softly, and then, more confidently, “Fuck them _all_.”

“Drink,” Jyn said brusquely, dropping her hands and swiping the canteen out of the sand. She shoved it at Sanduni, then rose to her feet and stomped into the freighter, bracing herself for what she would see.

The droid was straining to open the doors to the cockpit, which had crumpled when it crashed. To her left, Baze sat very still, crosslegged with his eyes closed, in front of five human-sized shapes covered in shiny silver emergency blankets. Two of those shapes were very small. Jyn jerked her eyes away, and looked for Cassian.

The captain was leaning against a buckled access panel inside one of the crew cabins, picking the lock carefully. “Environmental controls access,” he murmured when Jyn crawled through the bent doorframe and pulled herself up next to him. “If there’s a vaporator, it will be in here.”

She spotted another access panel near the bunk, and moved carefully across the slanted floor to tug at it. “Storage space,” she said when he paused to watch her.

The panel was stuck, but Jyn planted her feet and lifted with her legs, and with a groan of metal, the panel came free. She lay on her belly and reached into the storage compartment, which looked like it was mostly full of clothes. With a grunt and a shriek of metal, the captain wrestled his own access panel open, and she could hear him poking through broken wires and sparking circuitry. Jyn sifted through the clothes, looking for something her team could use.

“Sanduni?” he asked after a moment.

Jyn pulled a large beige set of coveralls from the compartment and set them aside, reaching back into the compartment. “Shock,” she said shortly. “She’ll recover.”

Another sparking noise, and a curse in that language she still couldn’t identify. Jyn threw a glance back over her shoulder, and saw him shaking his hand and grimacing. “Kay’s trying to shut down the backup power grid,” he said when he caught her looking. “I should probably wait until he does,” he flexed his reddened fingers ruefully.

Jyn pulled a light blue robe out of the storage compartment and tossed it onto her pile. “Did you hear?”

“The acoustics in here are surprisingly good,” he replied noncommittally, then fell silent. Jyn scowled, and she shrugged irritably at him. It wasn’t like she needed his opinion, anyway. She’d handled it.

His boots skid a little on the floor, and then his hand was on her back. Jyn tensed and glared back over her shoulder at him, crouching just above her on the slanted floor. “I’ve never heard anyone start a speech with ‘fuck them,’” he said, his voice casual even as his hand ran gently down her back.

Jyn held her rage a moment longer, then sighed and let it go. “Yeah, well, it was the best I could do,” she grumbled, pulling her arm free of the compartment and pushing herself to her knees.

“I thought it was quite good,” Cassian said thoughtfully. “Have you considered a career in motivational speaking?”

Jyn snorted.

“No, no,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. “It could work. You could go to those work conferences, teaching interns how to climb the corporate ladder. Or business conventions.”

Jyn rolled her eyes and slugged his shoulder gently, the last of her anger dissipating. A faint crackling sound from his open access panel caught their attention, and the captain pulled himself back up to it. “Power’s off,” he said, reaching inside again. “And there is…yes, a vaporator.”

“Finally, some luck,” Jyn muttered, and he nodded once in relieved agreement.

“I’ll need help detaching it,” he said. “Send in Kay and one of the recruits, will you? I need you to check on the Guardian and set up a perimeter watch.”

“Kay! Maddel!” Jyn grabbed her pile of clothes and dropped through the doorframe, shouting out of the hull breach. “With the captain! Lorga, how’s the leg?”

“Fine, Sarge,” Lorga rasped, but Sanduni cut her off with only a faintly shaking voice.

“Nonsense, it’s swollen and overheated. She needs to keep it elevated for awhile.”

“Then you’re with me, Sanduni,” Jyn said. “Get the injured into the shade and we’ll do a perimeter sweep.” She turned and looked around for the Guardian, who had vanished from his spot by the covered bodies. It took her a moment, but she found him in the starboard cabin, examining a…was that a repeater cannon? With a _belt feeder_?

Briefly, she wondered who the people in the freighter had been, but shook the thought away before it could root in her head. It didn’t matter, not anymore, and she had more pressing problems. The big monk raised his head as Jyn peered at him, meeting her eyes with a challenging expression as he watched her take in the enormous weapon.

“Sarge?” Sanduni asked, creeping reluctantly into the opening of the hull.

Jyn met Baze’s eyes with a level stare, and then deliberately turned away. “Here,” she told Sanduni, tossing the light blue robe at her. “That’s better suited for this climate. Take off the jacket and put this on over your clothes.”

Sanduni hesitated, biting her lip as she held the cloth delicately in her hands. Twi’lek had cultural traditions about revering the deceased, Jyn remembered, and she braced herself for the woman to refuse to wear a dead person’s clothes. But Sanduni surprised her, taking a deep breath and shucking her jacket quickly, pulling on the blue robe without comment. “We survive,” she whispered, looking down at her feet.

Jyn hoisted the rest of the clothes up in her arms, planning to toss them to Inkari. “Let’s go.”

Before they could move out into the sun again, Baze looked up from examining his new weapon. “Got anything else in that pile?”

The desert around the crashed ship was vast, red, and empty as far as Jyn could see. She spent a few minutes teaching Sanduni how to use the macrobinoculars that the captain dug out of his pack, then several more recharging the few blasters they had between them. Maddel helped her anchor a few extra emergency blankets to the outside of the ship and stretch them out into an overhanging canvas, shielding them from sun and wind. Inkari somehow got a fire going, burning a pile of salvaged materials from the freighter's cargo hold. It took the captain about an hour to get the vaporator out and running, another two hours for it to produce enough water for the team to drink, and by the time Jyn was satisfied that their campsite was relatively secure, the sun was dropping below the mountains and the sky was rapidly darkening. In the distance, Jedha City had only a few lights winking here and there, but the Destroyer was lit up like a holiday decoration, covered in twinkling lights and flashing colors. From here, Jyn mused, it looked almost beautiful.

To her mild surprise, it was Inkari and not Sanduni who insisted on a ceremony for the victims of the wreck. Jyn watched Cassian’s face smooth back into his impassive mask as he nodded, and then he and Kay went inside to carry the bodies out into the desert. Baze, now dressed in the beige coveralls that Jyn had scrounged and hauling the giant repeater cannon around on his back, picked up the largest body. Jyn scooped her arms under the smallest, being very careful not to dislodge the blanket wrapped around it. She didn’t need to see.

Maddel and Sanduni picked up the fifth body together, and the party moved them, slowly and carefully out past the nearest dunes. Baze directed them to arrange all five in a circle, their heads pointed inward and their feet out. Or at least, that’s what Jyn assumed. She wasn’t going to peek inside and check.

They weighed the blankets down with bits of metal and heavy objects scavenged from the wreck, and Maddel carefully tucked a stuffed bantha toy next to the smallest body. Jyn turned her head away, and her gaze landed on Cassian.

He was staring at the toy, eyes flat, jaw slack - an empty expression.

When the bodies were situated, Baze clapped his large hands together, lowered his head, and said something long and flowing in Old Jedhan that rolled through the desert air, then dissipated like dust. When he was done, he looked up, and as if by habit, said solemnly, “May the Force of- ”

And then he stopped abruptly, as if he’d been struck, and his jaw snapped shut. They waited in silence, but he simply dropped his hands and stared silently into the oncoming darkness.

Across the bodies, Inkari leaned carefully on Maddel’s shoulder. “Though much is taken,” he spoke slowly, his body sagging with exhaustion from his injuries and lack of rest, “much abides.” He stretched out his free hand to Sanduni’s shoulder. Jyn saw with mixed feelings that tears were now streaking down the Twi’lek’s face, dripping off her chin and sinking into the thirsty sand.

“And though we have not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven,” Inkari intoned, squeezing Sanduni’s shoulder gently. She sniffed, and reached up to clutch at his hand on her shoulder. “That which we are, we _are_. One equal temper of heroic hearts,” Inkari paused, took another deep breath. Lorga shuffled closer, watching Sanduni with an expression that made Jyn’s chest ache, while Maddel clenched her fists and stared across the desert at the distant Star Destroyer.

Jyn turned away from the recruits, at the easy way they seemed to fit together despite the little time they had known one another. “Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,” the big Lasat continued, and Jyn chose instead to look at the captain’s shuttered face.

Cassian’s eyes stayed fixed on the bantha toy.

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” Inkari finished, a little breathless. He sagged against Maddel once more, who staggered but didn’t protest.

“At least they weren’t alone,” Lorga said tentatively, then hunched her shoulders and looked away, her ears flat.

The captain turned on his heel and walked back to the camp without a word.

“Kay,” Jyn said as normally as she could manage. “Will you need a secondary watch stander, or can you cover us?”

The droid swung his optics from Cassian’s retreating back to Jyn’s face. “The open terrain facilitates my scanning protocols,” he answered. “Are you ordering me to establish a perimeter guard, Sergeant Hallik?”

“I’m asking if you need help,” Jyn glared at him.

“Ah.” The droid seemed to consider for a moment. “No,” he said, and stomped away over the dunes.

“Bed down,” Jyn ordered the recruits. She hunted for something else to say, something that acknowledged the five bundles at her feet, but found she had nothing. Baze had spoken for the dead, and Inkari for the living. It was done. So Jyn kept her mouth shut, although she did reach out and touch the big Guardian’s shoulder as she passed. He didn’t look at her, but his shoulder dropped slightly under her hand.

She found Cassian back inside the wrecked ship, determinedly picking through the insides of a partially burned console in the cockpit. It was hard to wiggle her way in through the shattered cockpit doors, and then she had to pick carefully over the rough-edged hole in the middle of the floor, but eventually she made her way over to him.

He still didn’t look up, but Jyn could be patient when she had to be. She settled on the floor and tugged her jacket tight around her. Cassian had zipped his fur lining back into his parka, she noted idly. Given how fast the temperature dropped in the desert at night, that was a good idea. He had broken down his rifle back into a hand blaster, which was sitting on the console next him. 

Something clanged loudly inside the console, and he swore under his breath again.

“ _Gilipollas,”_ she repeated contemplatively. “I think I’ve heard that one before.” She frowned. “Think I’ve heard it a lot, actually.”

“It’s a versatile word.”

Jyn nodded absently, watching him stare at the console, face still completely blank even as his hands gripped the sides so tightly his knuckles whitened. Outside, the desert winds scraped sand against the battered hull, and Jyn could just make out the cracking of the fire and the voices of the recruits as they shared the clothing and water from the wreck.

“It was Coruscant,” Cassian said tersely into the silence. “My nightmare. I was on Coruscant.” He snapped his mouth shut, bowed his head. His face was still impassive, but she could see the edges of it fraying, the tension in his shoulders, the faint crack in his voice. He opened his mouth again, grimaced slightly, closed it. He fell silent again, breathing slow and steady, and clearly trying to repair his failing defense.

It was easier, Jyn realized with a flash of insight, when it was dark. She’d only told him about Saw when she was huddled close in the dim light of the garage. He’d told her his name with his mouth almost pressed to her forehead. Too dark to see, too close to hurt.

Jyn stood up and pushed between him and the useless flight console. She slid up onto the console and settled herself on the edge, and reached carefully for his shoulders, giving him time to pull away or run. He stayed still as a statue until she slid her hands around his back, and then he stepped between her knees and buried his face against her neck. His grip was almost viciously tight, his fingertips digging into her so hard they would probably leave fresh marks on top of the fading bruises on her back. She didn’t really care.

He was shaking again, fine tremors not nearly as hard as this morning but still fairly alarming. Jyn wrapped herself around him as much as she could.

“The people I was with,” he started, stopped, breathed hard against her skin. “They worked for an Imperial weapons manufacturer. Called themselves a private security firm, but everyone knew they were gangsters.” He shook his head. “But they had information we needed. Critical information. I joined as a new member, worked for months to find a way into their higher security networks. The initiations…”

“It’s alright,” Jyn murmured against his hair. “I get it.” And she did – the Partisans weren’t technically a gang, but Saw was a paranoid son of a bantha bitch who insisted on “tests of loyalty” before any new recruit could join the cadre. The tests for his own personal team had been downright draconian.

“I did whatever they asked of me,” Cassian said in a harsh voice, and Jyn almost flinched at the acidic bite of it. “I was _good_ at it. I advanced in weeks. _La junta_ wanted me for the upper level operations by the fifth month.”

Jyn closed her eyes, the knots in her stomach pulling tight. She knew where this was going.

“But I had to make my bones, had to, had to prove that I was exactly the kind of vicious bastard they wanted running their profit ops.” He stopped again, and the tremors stopped too. For a moment, Jyn thought he was going to pull away, so she dipped her head and pressed a hard kiss to his cheek, the only part of his face she could reach.

“I don’t want to tell you what I did,” he said tightly.

“Alright.”

“I don’t want to remember it.”

She nodded. 

“There was a rival officer,” he sounded almost strangled, and Jyn laid her head against his and waited. “A rival to the officer who hired the gang. They wanted him dead, and it had to look like an accident.”

Of course they did, she thought. And then she remembered the way he’d stared at the stuffed toy, and for a brief, cowardly moment, she wanted to ask him to stop. She didn’t want to hear this story either. But despite his protests, she had a feeling that he needed to tell it. Or at least, he needed her to know. She couldn’t absolve him, but she could _know_.

She licked her lips, and made herself ask. “What did they tell you to do?”

“He was on a private tram line through a mid-level business district,” Cassian told her quietly. “A ground patrol of ‘troopers, his wife, his three children, and two personal servants. I - ” he took a deep breath, and then said in a flat voice, the kind of voice she used to give debriefs after an operation, impersonal, distant. “I derailed the car, placed a timed charge on the track and sent it flying into the street. Over thirty injuries from the street crowd, extensive property damage.”

“Casualties?” she whispered.

“Everyone in the car,” he replied dully.

“Did you get the information?”

He laughed, or made a sound that could have been a laugh, somewhere under the bitterness and hatred. “They gave me access to the network within the hour. I downloaded more intel about current Imperial weapons projects in ten minutes than the Alliance had in the last ten months.”

They fell silent again, and Jyn knew he was waiting for her to either commend him for his success or condemn him for his method.

She reached up and tugged at his hair, pulling him back until she could see his face. He moved reluctantly – it was easier when they couldn’t see each other, and he knew it too – but he opened his eyes and met her gaze. Jyn tilted her chin. “I’m glad you made it out, Cassian.”

His eyes widened, the impassive expression shattering into astonishment. Whatever he’d expected to hear, it hadn’t been that. She didn’t wait for him to come to terms with it, she just leaned forward and kissed him, because whatever else she felt about what he’d done, what he’d been willing to do for the rebellion, for the cause – that much, at least, was true.

She was glad he was alive.

He didn’t respond for a moment, but Jyn bit at his lip to break through his shock, and then he opened his mouth and kissed her like he was drowning. Jyn caught her breath and let him take over, his hands in her hair, on her neck, shoving aside her scarf and shirt to give him access to her throat and shoulders. She wrapped her legs around his waist and slipped her hands inside his open parka to tug him closer, and he leaned into her willingly. She thought he might be shaking again, but they were pressed too tightly together to tell.

“Jyn,” he whispered hoarsely against her lips, and it sounded a little like a prayer, a little like a plea. “Jyn, Jyn.”

Something heavy slammed into the hull just outside the cockpit.

Cassian whirled around, snatching his blaster from where it had rested on the console next to Jyn and aiming out of the cockpit door. Jyn darted to his side, truncheons in hand and ready to strike.

“Captain,” Baze called in a dry, gravelly voice. “A word.”

Cassian and Jyn glanced at one another, and Jyn saw the realization in his face at the same moment her own cheeks warmed. Baze stood just around the corner from the cockpit door, facing outward. He probably had walked up a moment ago without them noticing, and then moved back down the small corridor from the cockpit. The booming noise must have been the Guardian’s idea of _knocking_.

“Of course,” Cassian said, and Jyn felt a deep surge of envy at how completely calm he sounded, even with his hair a wreck and his skin flushed. Setting her jaw grimly, she reached up and shoved a hand through his hair, forcing it back into something a little less…obvious.

His mouth pulled into a small, tired smile, but he let her fuss for a moment, then tucked his blaster back into his holster and strode out of the cockpit. Jyn took a moment more to right her own sloppy bun and straighten her clothes, then followed.

The Guardian led them both out of the ship and stopped on the edge of their little camp, facing Jedha City and the Star Destroyer that hunkered over it like a beast feasting on its kill. Cassian moved to step beside him, and when Jyn hesitated and hung back, he turned his head and tilted it to the spot beside him. Whatever the Guardian had to say, he wanted her to hear.

Jyn tried not to read too much into it.

Baze planted his feet and rested one heavy hand on the feeder belt to his new cannon. “I am going back,” he said simply.

It occurred to Jyn that her Kyber crystal had come loose when Cassian had – when Jyn was in the cockpit, and she tucked it quickly back into place. It was warm against her skin, and she felt more settled than she had in hours as it dropped back into the hollow of her throat.

“I understand,” the captain replied. “I wish you luck, Guardian.”

“Not a Guardian,” he grunted. “I don’t- I cannot-“ he lost some of his solid resolve, looking down at the sand beneath his feet.

“What do you believe in?” Jyn asked, as she had back at the catacombs.

Baze raised his head, and gave her a wry look. “Not _that_ ,” he replied again, jerking his head toward the Star Destroyer. “But, Chirrut…” he sighed, frowning as his eyes went distant and unfocused.

“You believe in him,” Jyn finished quietly.

Baze nudged Cassian aside with a broad shoulder, and the captain stepped back with a raised eyebrow but no comment. The big monk placed a heavy hand on Jyn’s shoulder, and for the first time, he smiled at her. “We will meet again, little sister,” he said.

“Fight’s not over,” she agreed, and she couldn’t help grinning back at him. The tight knots in her stomach were dissipating; despite her disappointment at his departure, this felt right.

“No,” Baze’s smile turned a shade ironic, and then dropped from his face. He nodded curtly at the captain, cast a long look over the rest of the recruits, and then without another word, he walked into the night, headed for the distant lights of his home.

“Organics,” Kay said from a spot near the fire, “are very indecisive creatures.”

Jyn rolled her eyes.

“Sometimes we just reach new conclusions, Kay,” Cassian said mildly, and something in his voice drew Jyn’s attention back to his face. He was watching her again, not quite back to his impassive mask but close. “We process new information, and realize we want something different.”

_Oh_ , Jyn thought.

_I was good at it_ , he’d said, with all the loathing that she normally reserved for deathtroopers.

“And sometimes we don’t,” she retorted, staring him directly in the eye and daring him to fight her about it.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, the impassive mask was gone completely. “Good,” he said softly.

She crossed her arms. “Good.”

“ _Organics_ ,” Kay sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About two days after I posted the last chapter, I received a copy of "The Art of Rogue One" and may have squealed a little when I saw [a picture of Jedha's catacombs](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dlOw1D62Fwk/WIPajMnovZI/AAAAAAAAMPs/1kqSgTrOTAgDyMnVB0DEIiA-jobFcArQwCLcB/s1600/RO6_AW_1920.jpg) in it. They looked nothing like I initially described, so of course I had to correct to that in this chapter. We'll just say that picture illuminates the older version of the catacombs, where the first Guardians and the original Jedi rest.
> 
> While a [vaporator](http://showcase.starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Moisture_vaporator/Legends) is typically a ground based machine, I like to pretend that ships would have some too, in order to replenish their water supply when in atmosphere. 
> 
> Inkari’s eulogy is from [Ulysses](http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/733/), by Lord Alfred Tennyson, and I'm sorry I didn't pick something more relevant to the tragedy itself, but funerals are never really for the dead, anyway.


	13. Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, the wonderful @thereigning-lorelai made an edit for this story. [It's really beautiful!](http://thereigning-lorelai.tumblr.com/post/166405455260/jyn-smirked-at-him-and-rolled-her-eyes-slightly-to)
> 
> Second, i just want to get this off my chest: It is 2017 and I cannot believe we must even _have_ this conversation, but _in case anyone is confused_ the Galactic Empire was an evil fascist dictatorship that oppressed, enslaved, and murdered literally trillions of people. The fact that some Rebels preformed small-scale violent crimes for the sake of their cause (or their survival) does not, in any way, make the Empire ‘the good guys all along.’ They are evil. They did evil things in canon. They did evil things in the EU. ( **And warning, they do evil things in this chapter.** ) 
> 
> The Empire was Evil.
> 
> Thank you.

It was a clear night, at least. K2SO found some kind of signal booster in the ship that he and Cassian thought would help them send a coded message through to Command. Jyn left them huddled together near the wreck, and the recruits sprawled around the fire as she walked the perimeter of their small camp, dropping proximity markers. Jyn stepped softly through the sifting sands and listened to the whine of the cold desert winds across the red dunes. The planet of NiJedha wasn’t visible yet, so there was nothing in the blue-black sky but a rich scattering of stars, like a treasure trove of jewels thrown across dark velvet, like strands of Kyber dangling in a mirror-dark infinity room.

Well, nothing, that was, except the garishly lit Imperial Star Destroyer hovering over Jedha City.

Jyn finished her circuit, ending up on the far side of the ship from her team and staring at the harsh white lights of the Destroyer and the weaker, reddish lights of the city cowering beneath it. The she turned her back on it and faced in the opposite direction, tilting her head up and looking at the stars. Perhaps it was Inkari’s endless poetry burrowing into her brain, but she found herself thinking of an old song one of the Partisans had sung, long ago when she was little. How had it gone? Something about a dark soul, or a soul in darkness, but that the stars made the darkness less frightening…

Cassian found her there an hour or so later, sitting in the sand and leaning back against her hands. She was humming absently to herself, brow furrowed as she tried to recall the words of some long-forgotten melody, and she didn’t see him coming at first. But the familiar warm pressure of his eyes brushed the back of her neck, spreading across her shoulders like a touch. Jyn stopped humming a little self-consciously, but she kept her eyes on the stars, waiting. After a long moment, she heard a soft sigh, then the faint hiss of sand as he walked out of the shadow of the wreck to stand beside her.

“We got through,” he said.

Jyn nodded, still waiting. To her disappointment, he didn’t sit beside her. Business then, she thought resignedly, and pushed herself to her feet. She planted her feet and crossed her arms, turning slightly so she could see him. With the Destroyer behind them and the recruits out of sight around the wreck, there was nothing to see but the wide open stretch of desert, the boundless tapestry of the sky, and Cassian. It felt like they were the only two beings for miles around. It probably should have been unsettling, but mostly it just felt peaceful. Jyn let her mouth curve slightly, cocked her head a little to the side and felt the soft brush of her beautiful scarf against her cheek.

Except…Cassian was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, following her gaze up to the sky. It was hard to pick out his expression in the dark, but his shoulders looked hard and his jawline sharp.

Jyn frowned and straightened. Whatever Command had said wasn’t sitting well with him. Maybe they were going to be stuck out here for awhile. Maybe he’s gotten personal bad news from base. Only one way to know.

“Plan?”

“Lockdown will be partially lifted tomorrow evening,” he replied in a calm, precise voice. “Merchants only, and no traffic to anywhere outside the city. The Alliance has a shuttle with the right clearances. It will come in at sunset, offload some supplies we can afford to lose, and we will smuggle our people onboard before it takes off again.”

Well, that sounded promising. “How do we get back into the city?”

“I was hoping you could help with that.” He fished through his jacket pockets for a moment and then held out a flat disk about the size of her palm. She didn’t miss how he pulled his hands away from hers as soon as she took it, tucking them behind his back and turning his face to the sky again. The disk dragged her attention away, though, and she gasped and flicked on her pocket light to get a better look as she recognized it. “I took it from the dead Tognath,” Cassian told her as she traced her fingers over the complex set of interlocking, engraved rings slotted inside each other on the disk. “The Partisan who attacked y- our team in the city.”

“It’s a Partisan cypher,” she answered his unspoken question. “It must show how they got in and out of the city after the invasion, probably has supply caches and safe houses too. Its more complicated than I remember them being, but if I can just…” she trailed off, sliding the rings around, puzzling at the aurebesh symbols mixed in with mythological creatures, and little chips of color. “It’s a map of Jedha City,” she explained to him absently, flicking one ring and then another. _Auren, resh, peth, and that one is…yes, it’s the starbird rising…_ “The symbols are landmarks, so I just figure out which symbol means which place and put them in the right spot.” … _that mark is for north, so_ _if I align the eye of the roving kelevra with the green cherek…_

“Trouble is, some of the symbols are bantha shit, just there to confuse things,” she wrinkled her nose at the map. _Wait, I have that part backwards I think, the lady of imsfire always rides_ towards _the lady of strong iron, not away, right? Damnation, it’s been too long since I did this..._

“Saw was always a paranoid bastard, but this is really getting fucking ridiculous,” she muttered. The brass disk clicked softly in her hands as she slid the rings around inside each other, aligning symbols, slowly creating the city of Jedha in her hands. _If that strange fruit represents the Temple of Kyber, then the red mark that looks like stylized wind must be the Paths of Judgement, which means the crown of the lunar royal represents the southern port...right, that makes sense…_

“Jyn,” Cassian said from the darkness beside her.

“Hang on a tick, almost...got…hmm…”

“Jyn.” He shifted his weight in the sand. “Who are you?”

The rings stilled in her hands.

Jyn lifted her head. Belatedly, she recognized the distant tone in his voice, the detached chill in the way he stood apart from her.

He was looking at her, but from an angle, his head still tilted slightly away so he could only see her from the corner of his eye. His hands were still clasped behind his back, but now that she was paying attention, she could see that his fingers were clenched tight.

A hard, cold lump began to form in her belly. Warning alarms blared in the back of her mind, but...He’d pulled her close in the dark of the Infinite, and of the catacombs. He’d come for her when the Partisans slapped cuffs on her wrists. He’d held her so tightly, kissed her so hard. He’d given her his name (Maybe. Probably. Hopefully).

That had to be worth a little trust.

She swallowed back the fear, raised her chin, and switched off her flashlight. They were plunged into starlit darkness, and as her eyes adjusted, she heard him clear his throat. “When I spoke with Command - ” he started, stopped, licked his lips and dropped his eyes. When he looked back at her (still that side-long glance, as if he didn’t want to face her fully, as if he didn’t dare), he continued in a cold, almost clinical voice.

“I am a high value asset,” the captain told her, as matter of fact as if he’d announced that the color of his parka was blue, the Imperials had invaded Jedha. “And Command had no idea this invasion was coming, or they would never have risked sending me here on a recruit pick up. If I were captured, it would be a significant risk to Alliance personnel and operations.” He flexed his jaw slightly, as if there was a bad taste in his mouth that he could not spit out. “I...expected to be told to prioritize my return to base.”

It made a horrible kind of sense. He was a high ranking intelligence officer. It would hurt the Alliance to lose him. Was that why he was so tense? He thought she would be angry at his status, or Command’s decision? Sure, it was not a _fun_ thing, to hear that your leaders would willingly trade your life for a more valuable soldier, but, well, sometimes the truth sucked.

His jaw flexed again; he swallowed like there was acid in his throat. “I almost expected to be ordered to... leave the rest of you behind.” Jyn raised her eyebrows at the frozen undercurrent in his words, but didn’t interrupt. (In the back of her mind, a soft voice whispered, _and_   _if you had…?)_ The lump in her guts grew a little, but she shoved back against the creeping chill and told herself to give him the chance he'd earned.

As if he’d heard her unspoken, unfinished question, Cassian looked away for a long moment, and then abruptly dropped his arms and turned to face her directly. “But they told me that I had to get _you_ off Jedha, Jyn. At all costs.”

The hard lump in her gut expanded again, crystallized, and spread through her chest. This did _not_ make any sense. There was no reason for her to matter, no reason for Command  to single her out, except maybe…

No. He was dead.

“So I ask again, Sergeant Liana Hallik,” the captain stepped closer, crowding into her space, and in the dark she could only see the harsh lines of his face and the gleam of his eyes in starlight as he stared down at her. “Who are you?”

 _He’s dead, he’s dead, there’s nothing left to connect him to me, nothing to connect me to anyone._ “No one,” Jyn forced out from her dry throat, her achingly tight jaw. “Just another foot soldier in the war.”

He made a strangled noise in his throat that sounded like a stillborn laugh. “Do you know how many supplies the Alliance is sacrificing just to get a shuttle into Jedha tomorrow? Do you know what they are willing to risk, to ensure that you don’t – that you get out of here?”

The stutter was quick, and he covered it almost too smoothly for Jyn to catch it, but some part of her had been waiting for this moment from the second she put her hand in his in the alleys of Jedha, and Jyn’s eyes narrowed.

“To ensure that I don’t _what_ , Captain?” She hissed the rank through her teeth, glaring up into his eyes. It hit her almost as soon as she asked, however, and Jyn’s heart clenched like her fists. “They didn’t order you to get me out, did they? They ordered you to keep me out of Imperial hands.” Her breath caught; she wanted to laugh, or cry, or hit something hard enough to split her knuckles. “ _At all costs_ ,” she repeated softly. “If I’m caught, you have to-”

He flinched, a twitch of his lip, but Jyn was too close now to miss it. “You have to kill me,” she finished in a whisper, and the gleam of his eyes vanished as he closed them against her stare. He was so close that the front of his jacket nearly brushed hers, close enough that she could see the faint desert wind stirring the fur lining at the throat of his parka. If she leaned forward, she could press her forehead to his collar again, close her eyes too and huddle in the dark.

Command had ordered him to get her out, or kill her. They’d had no problem sending her up against Imperials before, no concern with whether or not she made it back. Hells, they’d sent her to run covert missions on _Imperial prison planets_ before. It made no _sense_ to mark her like this now.

 _They must know something new_ , her thoughts raced, nearly as fast as her heart. _Something has changed, something’s been found…_

 _I downloaded more intel about current Imperial weapons projects in ten minutes than the Alliance had in the last ten months,_ he’d murmured into her shoulder, his voice brittle and his arms tight around her.

“Jyn,” he said again, low and urgent and _painful_ , and it wasn’t fair that she could feel his breath on her cheek but she could barely see him. His eyes were still closed, so there wasn’t even the faint reflection of starlight to humanize his featureless face. He was a shadow in the dark, the captain and the stranger all over again, with none of the companion, the ally, the friend.

“Jyn,” he shook his head as if to clear it. “Is that even your name?”

She couldn’t help it, she jerked back as if he’d slapped her.

“Does it matter?” She snarled, savagely gratified that the sudden harshness startled him into opening his eyes again. She jabbed a finger out at the echoing emptiness of the desert around them, then angled her arm up towards the looming Destroyer. “If we die out here, if _I_ die out here,” she corrected, and his jaw flexed again, “then it won’t matter, will it? And if we – _you_ – make it back, then Command will give you whatever file they have on me.” She laughed once, ugly and raw as an open wound. “Then you’ll probably know more about my life than I do.” _I’m the daughter of a traitor, I’m the child of an extremist, my father is dead, my father is a monster, and this is why Saw left me behind, this is why the Alliance has never made me officially part of any unit. I am a risk with no reward, the child of killers and collaborators, a deadly weapon they aren’t sure will stay pointed at the enemy._

Jyn’s eyes stung with unshed tears, but she refused to shut them. Let the cold, dry air of Jedha freeze them away. She stepped away from him again, and loaded her voice with knives. “So tell me, _Captain_.” The hard lump in her guts took the shape of his name, and there was no way to dislodge it. Instead, she spread her arms wide in a mocking shrug. “Does it matter if you know my name?”

“No,” he ground out at last. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

Of course it didn’t.

“I guess I should be grateful for one thing,” she went on, stepping back once more until she was out of his reach and half turned to run. “If it comes to it, at least you can make it quick.” She reached up and tapped her forehead, right between the eyes, and almost jumped as a quiet but jagged sound tore from his throat at her gesture. It ripped across her heart like a serrated blade, and she wished that she hadn’t said it, but it was too late.

The story of her damned life.

Jyn walked away.

The recruits were huddled together by the fire. They’d pulled some of the broken furniture from the civilian wreck; Maddel on a stripped down mattress, contemplating the modified CR-2 blaster that Cas- the captain had given her. Sanduni and Lorga were leaning against one another on a small torn sofa, the Twi’lek telling some story in a soft voice while the Shistavanen watched her through half closed eyes.  Inkari lay on his back on a second mattress, his hands folded over his massive chest, gazing serenely at the stars. A few meters outside the ring of flickering firelight, Kay’s solid black outline stood like a menacing statue facing the dark, the only sign of life a small flashing red light on his torso that indicated his scanners were active.

Someone had ripped the legs off an old stuffed armchair (or they had found it broken like that) and set the chair on the sand at the edge of the firelight. Jyn would need the light to see the cypher map, so she stalked close and curled herself up on the chair.  Sanduni ended her story to Lorga, and raised her voice as Jyn crossed her legs, resting the cypher in her lap. “What’s that, Sarge?”

“Map,” Jyn grunted, not in the mood to chat.

“Um, to Jedha?”

Jyn shrugged. _Blue tiger in the west,_ she thought doggedly, forcing herself to wrench her memories of Saw’s coding preferences out of the cave where she’d shoved them, along with everything else she wanted to forget. _Green mynock in the east, so the sleeping woman – what’s she called, Kalen? Karina? Whatever, her symbol is the sea – she lives in the southwest, so line that up with the mynock..._

Sanduni, it seemed, was not deterred by her blunt refusal to interact. “Did the captain find you, Sarge? He was looking…”

Jyn snapped her head up and stared at her.

The Twi’lek ducked her chin, and Jyn turned her attention back to the cypher. _Black triangles for ingress_ , she tried to refocus, but her thoughts fractured and scattered like the loose grains of sand across the tops of the distant dunes. _Black triangles for ingress_ , she tried again, angrily.

Lorga mumbled something to Sanduni, and Inkari rumbled a low laugh. “She looks not for the Jedi Knight,” the Lasat recited just above the whistling of the desert winds. “She looks for the lightsaber.”

 _And the aurebesh symbol above the triangle marks the ingress’ latitude, so the number below it marks longitude_. _If I’m right, then the nearest entrance into the city would be…there._

“Is there anything that does _not_ make you think of poetry?” Lorga demanded of Inkari.

The ingress was through the Beggar’s Quarter, if her guess was right. The kind of place the Imperials would either burn down in the first hour, or where they would herd every “undesirable” they didn’t want to deal with and lock them in.

Inkari made a low, thoughtful sound that vaguely reminded Jyn of a loth-cat purring. “Beekeeping,” he said solemnly.

Even Jyn looked up, briefly.

“Beekeeping?” Strands of Maddel’s blonde hair, heavy and lank with sweat from their desert trek, swung loose to frame her incredulous expression. “You…you don’t like beekeeping?”

“People who dress as if they are venturing into deepest space without a ship,” Inkari held up a huge hand and ticked off his thick fingers. “Swarms of poisonous insects crawling all over them. That perpetual _buzzing_ sound.” He dropped his hand and closed his eyes.

“You couldn’t hate, I don’t know, blood-beetles or skin worms?” Lorga shook her head, ears flapping.

“I do not hate bees,” Inkari corrected gently. “I merely find the profession of beekeeping to be entirely prosaic.”

“Bees are not poisonous,” Kay chimed in from the nearby shadows. “Although they are mildly venomous to most carbon based lifeforms.”

“Ah,” Inkari nodded slightly without opening his eyes. “Thank you, K2SO.”

“ _Beekeeping_ ,” Lorga muttered. Sanduni giggled, and Maddel heaved a slightly over-dramatic sigh.

The captain walked around the side of the wreck and stepped into the firelight. Jyn felt the softening lines of her shoulders go hard again, and she busied herself tucking away the cypher disk in her coat and turning to curl up in the chair.

“Should we keep the fire going, sir?” Maddel asked as the captain approached.

“Yes, but bank it lower, please,” he replied absently.

Jyn closed her eyes and pulled her scarf tight around her ears. Fortunately, the captain didn’t stay, even though Lorga and Sanduni scooted closer together to make room on their salvaged couch. She listened to him stalk away, out towards his droid, and if they spoke, they kept the volume too low for her to pick out over the wind.

The fire hissed and cracked as someone poured a few handfuls of sand over it, dropping the red light low. She could hear the recruits shifting and sorting themselves out on their makeshift beds, and then there was nothing but the soft howl of wind and the whisper of shifting sand. _At all costs_ , the desert murmured in her ears as sweet and vicious as poison in her canteen, _is that even really your name?_

She could leave.

It wouldn’t be easy, not with the droid scanning. But if she told him she wanted to patrol a little farther out, check for Partisan tracks…the mountains weren’t so far away that she couldn’t make it by sunrise.

Jyn rolled to her feet and stalked through the camp, skirting the fire, stepping over Inkari – who lay on his back with his hands folded on his chest – around watchful Lorga and weeping Sanduni and Maddel fussing with her strange blaster – past the whirring droid whose glowing optics watched her go, unblinking – past the dark, featureless shape of a man who kissed her throat and raised his rifle – out into the desert like a ship gliding across the starlit sea.

Sand shifted and sank beneath her feet, and she stumbled and swayed as it tried to rush out from under her boots and topple her into the cold embrace of the dunes. But she was light and fast and agile and anyway she’d been running across unsteady ground for years now, always just on the edge of falling, always forcing herself back upright.

She ran through the darkness, skimming through the vast desert where there was nothing but the endless silvered sand, the glittering sky, and in the distance, dark rocks rising. There was a cave in the rocks, with a hatch that her father had built and her mother had covered over with more stone, cleverly making it match with the side of the craggy hill. It was a secret cave, a special place just for Jyn and Mama and Papa and their friend Saw, and she was running there now because that was what Mama told her to do, what Papa had taught her to do. They were there now, surely, waiting for her to reach them, calling her name, _Jyn, Jyn_ – _is that even your name? My child, you must forget it. Lay it down in the sands and think only of the cause._

Surely Mama and Papa had not forgotten it. Surely they had not lain down in the sands and closed their eyes in the darkness, hiding the gleam of their eyes from the starlight. She clutched Mama’s crystal in her hand and felt the hard edges bite into her palm, throbbing in time with her heartbeat, _run, run, run._

Jyn ran, and she strained to hear their voices calling her from the dark rocks ahead. The cold wind howled past her, tugged gently at her scarf, caressed a warm hand through her hair. She ran and she ran, and the wind stroked her wet cheek and finally, finally, oh thank you sweet Force, it whispered _Jyn_. _Jyn._

_Jyn, it’s alright._

_Jyn._

Jyn woke up.

“It’s alright,” he whispered, his knuckles pressed gently to the damp skin under her left eye. “It’s alright.”

Jyn froze, motionless except her eyes, which snapped open to the grey dawn light, the reddish sands of Jedha blowing fitfully through the chilly air, and Cassian crouched in front of her with one hand outstretched to her cheek. His hood was up against the cold bite of the morning breeze, and he was squarely between her and the recruits, blocking her from their sight.

Her face was wet with tears.

Cassian brushed his knuckles against her cheek again, and his mouth was thin and hard but his eyes were simply weary. He looked bone tired, beard ragged, body worn thin from too little food and rest, shoulders tense under the heavy burden of survival.

“You called me Jyn,” she said inanely, her voice thin and cracked through a mouth dry as the desert.

His hand drifted from her cheek to her hair. He tugged gently at the edge of her scarf, which had fallen down in her sleep, drawing it back up over her head. Then he dropped his hand but stayed crouching on one knee, watching her like he was memorizing her, curled up in a broken chair in the sand with her hand clenched tight around her Kyber crystal and her face probably streaked with grime and tears.

Behind him, Lorga gave a loud, toothy yawn and flapped her ears irritably. The other recruits shuffled and grumbled as they pulled themselves up, refilling their canteens from the vaporator and ripping open nutrient bars. Kay stomped through the campsite, ignoring them all.

Jyn’s nose felt cold and runny, and she sniffled without thinking, then immediately hated herself for sounding so…kriff, so small and pathetic. Cassian’s hand flexed on his knee, then stilled. “Do we have an entrance, Sergeant?”

Jyn took a deep breath, then pushed herself up, rubbing her face vigorously against her sleeve until she was confident that no trace of tear tracks remained. “Yes sir,” she replied in a clear, calm voice when she was ready. She pulled the cypher disk free and tossed it to him. “There’s an entrance through the Beggar’s Quarter, not too far from the western port. Should take us maybe five hours to get to it if we can avoid being picked up by air patrols, another two to get from the quarter to the port. Will that work?”

He examined the cypher disk with a vague sort of politeness, then nodded and tossed it lightly back. “Very well. Lead the way, Sergeant. The sooner we’re in position, the better.”

Jyn watched him, but he kept his head bowed so she couldn’t see his face from this angle. She walked slowly past him, headed for the vaporator to refill her canteen. It would be a long march back, and the freezing desert would heat up quickly. She heard the rustle of cloth as he stood up behind her, then nothing.

“Come on, Lorga,” Inkari said loudly beside the fire. “Brush your fur and drink your water, it’s time to rise with the sun.”

Lorga rolled over on the couch and flattened her ears. “Howling moons, Jak, you start with that ‘rise up’ poem again, and I’m going to bite you.”

“ _This I asked the learned scholar_ ,” Inkari replied immediately in a meditative voice.

“Idiot,” Maddel groaned, chucking an empty canteen at Lorga. “You had to say it.”

“ _Sir, how can I rise to honor?”_

“Seriously, Inkari, I will _bite_ your purple ass.”

“ _And such was the master’s reply-”_

“Organics have such a strange fascination with corresponding sounds in consecutive words,” Kay interjected. “No matter how nonsensical the meaning.”

Inkari grabbed Lorga by the collar of her jacket and hauled her up upright. She yelped and took a swipe at him, but he dumped her in the sand and stepped safely out of reach. “ _To rise up, live, love, fight, and die_ ,” he finished a touch smugly. At least he was moving about on his own again, Jyn thought.

“…bite you…” Lorga muttered from the ground, her fur now full of sand.

“I refilled your canteen,” Sanduni smiled and held the sloshing water bottle over Lorga’s head. “Water’s a bit warm, but it tastes nice and clean.”

The Shistavanen rolled onto her back and looked up at the Twi’lek with an expression of exaggerated devotion. “Yvette, you are a wonderful person.” She reached up and plucked the canteen from Sanduni’s hand and took a long drink, still flopped in the sand. “You are a beautiful meadow of wonderfulness in this vast forest of arseholes.”

“Now _there’s_ an image,” Maddel muttered as Sanduni’s cheeks turned a darker shade of purple.

“Let’s go, people,” Jyn said sharply. “You can compose poetry later, Lorga, get up and move out.”

“ _I’m_ not the one - ” Lorga whined, then caught sight of Jyn’s expression. She sighed and rolled to her feet, surging up to her considerable height and sending sand flying like a miniature dust devil from her fur. “Yes, Sarge.”

Jyn capped off her canteen, swept a quick look around the campsite – old instincts from her time with the Partisans warned her to burn the furniture, bury the fire barrel, destroy any signs that anyone had been here…but there was no time, and it hardly mattered anyway. The desert would swallow it all up soon enough. Jyn touched her crystal lightly through her shirt, then her blaster, truncheons, knives. Her fingers lingered for only a brief moment on the small, hidden (empty) pocket on her inner thigh, then she slapped the sand from her knees briskly and headed towards the distant city of Jedha.

She didn’t look back, but she heard the recruits scramble to catch up.

“I’m never going to get this sand out of my fur,” Lorga grumbled from somewhere near the back of the line.

“A single sonic shower of three minutes duration will remove the majority of siliceous materials from an organic surface,” the droid told her repressively. “Whereas I will require several hours in a full immersion oil bath to remove all danger of sand granules in my circuitry.”

“Well that sounds like a personal problem,” Lorga snapped back, clearly still grouchy about her rude awakening.

“Save your strength,” the captain cut her off mildly from the rear of the party, just loud enough for Jyn to hear. “We have a long way to go.”

The return trip was every bit as brutal as Jyn had expected, though there was a thirty minute window or so where the air lost its frozen bite and became almost pleasant, before the sun really started warming the sands up properly and the recruits began to tug at their suddenly too-warm clothes. After that, though, the hot wind kicked up grit into their faces, and there was nothing to do but tighten their scarves or hoods and trudge onward.

Three times, Kay announced that an Imperial air patrol was nearing their position, and the captain ordered everyone to drop to the ground and throw the emergency blankets they had taken from the wreck over themselves, shiny silver side down. The other side of the blankets was a bland beige color, which blended in with the sand – at least, from the air. The blankets trapped heat in like a small oven, and Jyn laid under hers with her fingers holding the edges up from the sand just enough to stare out at the clear blue sky with a glower. Once the drone of distant engines faded, the droid would sound the all clear and they would crawl out of their makeshift shelters like crabs emerging from their sandy holes.

The only upside, as far as Jyn was concerned, was that after the first patrol, the captain kept the largest blanket draped over the droid’s shoulders, so that all he had to do was fling the edge over Kay’s head and then duck under his own blanket. It made the KX droid look like he was wearing a long, flowing silver cape, and Jyn’s chapped lips twitched every time she looked back. Once, she caught the captain’s eye as she swallowed a grin, and she thought he might have been doing the same. But he turned away before she could really tell.

A few hours into the march, Inkari started to pant and clutch at his injured side, and he shot Jyn a look that seemed almost ashamed when the captain ordered Kay to brace him up again. By the time they reached the base of Jedha City’s plateau, all the recruits were wilting under the relentless sun and the long slog through loose sand. Jyn’s legs ached too, and sweat trickled down her back, but she kept her head up and her steps resolute, not a flicker of discomfort on her face. She caught Maddel and Sanduni staring at her incredulously more than once. 

Whatever the captain thought of the march, and Jyn’s apparent ease, he kept to himself.

The entrance to the Beggar’s Quarter was at the top of a long, narrow staircase carved into the side of the plateau. On the positive side, it was partially overhung by the red stone, so the Imperial air patrols wouldn’t see them.

On the negative side, Jyn estimated it was roughly thirty stories of deep, narrow stairs.

Shit.

The captain called a rest at the base of the stairs, but even half an hour of sitting in the shade and guzzling the last of the water did little to help. The recruits sprawled where they could and tugged at their clothes, making vain attempts to waft a breeze over sweaty skin. The captain, his parka stripped off and bundled on top of his pack, was fussing with something on Kay’s back, probably cleaning sand out of a service port. Jyn ignored the lot of them and stood at the base of the steps, glaring up.

An hour to get up, she calculated, another two hours through the Beggar’s Quarter, if they were lucky. Then sunset, and the shuttle…assuming she made it to the shuttle.

 _Nothing’s changed_ , she told herself irritably. _There was always a chance you would die on this mission._ And it wasn’t like she _preferred_ to be captured by the Imperials, for fuck’s sake. Imperial prisons were ugly places at the best of times, but invasion forces like this wouldn’t send her to a prison. They’d torture, rape, or kill her (or all three) in whatever convenient cell they had handy, and never bother to update the system.

If she had to die, she told herself as firmly as she could, there were worse ways than a quick bolt to the head from someone who would at least remember her name. (He'd know she told the truth when he got back to base, he'd know she gave him this, at least. That had to count for something. It had to.)

“Ready?” He asked softly from her elbow, and Jyn jumped slightly. 

“As I can be,” she answered, without looking back.

It took two hours to climb the stairs, mostly because both Inkari and Lorga required several stops. Jyn’s legs felt like they were on fire, the still-fading bruises on her back ached, and her head felt heavy as lead. She kept her eyes up, though, and grit her teeth with each passing step to keep from groaning.  Behind her, even Lorga stopped grunting and shaking her head every few minutes, too exhausted for even a quiet complaint. If she were the type to actually believe in any hells, Jyn decided grimly, she’d know that at least one of them was entirely composed of staircases.

Eventually, they made it to the short, narrow tunnel that burrowed through the stone wall to the city, and Jyn lead the team into what looked at first glance like a stone hive. Jyn sidled to the side of the narrow, filthy street and eyed the boxy red structures stacked haphazardly on top of one another, with clotheslines strung with rags stretched between them, and piles of trash drifting like small dunes in the gutters. This place was closer to a rat warren than a sentient habitat, with no discernible pattern to any of the streets or placement of buildings. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Star Destroyer filled all the gaps where she should have been able to glimpse the sky between the crumbling buildings.

“Ugh, that stink,” Lorga grumbled as she emerged from the tunnel, her limp significantly more pronounced than it had been that morning. Privately, Jyn agreed; even to her less sensitive nose, the thick cloying smell of urine and trash was almost overwhelming.

But she was less bothered by the pervasive stench of the streets than she was by the echoing emptiness of them.

Jyn glanced back and caught the captain’s eye, and he nodded slowly as he recognized what had her concerned. This was probably never the most bustling of areas in the city, but now it was utterly deserted, not even the poorest of beggars huddled in a stone doorway or on a dirty corner.

“’Troopers,” Inkari said abruptly, his head tilted towards the east. Jyn pressed back against the stone and pulled her blaster free, but it took several seconds before she could pick out the distant tramp of multiple booted feet marching in synch over stone.

“The sound is moving away from us,” Kay reassured them a moment later. “There is a forty-three percent chance that we will have a clear path to the port if we travel around the edge of the wall.”

“And if we don’t?” The captain asked, slowly resettling his own blaster. “If we cut through to the inner streets?”

“Twenty-one percent chance of a clear path.”

“Wall,” the captain told Jyn, who nodded and slunk westward, following the curve of the outer wall as best she could. She tried not to let the silence of the streets get to her – it had been this empty up in the main city on Day One, and she’d managed just fine. This, though, this felt different; then, she’d known that people were huddled in every house or building she passed, waiting for lockdown to lift. This, however, felt more like true emptiness, like the buildings were as hollow and abandoned as the streets that wound between them.

“This is eerie,” Sanduni whispered at one point.

“No chatter,” Jyn said firmly, but she couldn’t force herself to speak louder than a low murmur.

“Watch that puddle,” Lorga said abruptly, grabbing Sanduni and steering her around a suspiciously dark-colored stain. The Shistavanen’s nose twitched and she looked down at the drying gunk with revulsion.

“What is it?” Sanduni asked, eyeing the puddle and stepping carefully where Lorga guided her.

“Nothing,” Lorga growled shortly. Jyn raised her eyebrow, but the woman refused to meet anyone’s eye and didn’t comment again.

The reason for the deserted streets became clear as they neared the space port.

“There seem to be an abnormally large number of people a street or two ahead, Captain,” Inkari said, still a little breathless from the stairs (and the desert, the catacombs, the knife wound, the war…), his ears twitching. A moment later, Lorga sniffed reluctantly at the fetid air, coughed once, and added, “Blaster discharge. Lots of blaster discharge up there. And something rotten.”

Deserted streets, lots of people crowded together, blaster discharge, rotten smell…

Jyn met the captain’s eyes again, and she saw the same dawning dread in his face that she knew was probably spreading across hers.

“Sarge?” Sanduni asked tentatively. “Are you okay?”

Behind Sanduni, the captain slammed his face into a neutral expression so fast that she could actually see the mask lock into place. A moment later her brain caught up, and she relaxed her jaw, dropped her shoulders, forced herself to look as calm as possible.

“I’m going to scout ahead, sir,” she said briskly, business as usual and nothing to worry about.

“I’ll come along, Sergeant,” he replied immediately, pulling his pack off and handing it to Maddel. “Kay, take everyone north a half klick, and thirty second scans every five minutes. Turn on the locator beacon for me in twenty minutes. We’ll come find you.”

“What’s happened?” Lorga demanded.

“We don’t know,” Jyn told her as honestly as she dared (they didn’t, not for _sure_ ). “We’ll find out.”

“This way,” the captain pointed to a rickety ladder on a nearby building. He reached out for it, but Jyn gathered her tired limbs and jumped up before he could touch it, snagging the bottom rung with one hand and letting her weight yank it down. She flashed him a pointed look over her shoulder as she swung herself up the ladder and climbed, and she could have sworn she heard him chuckle, low and soft, as he followed up behind her. The roof of this particular building was covered in laundry lines, bits of random garbage, and a slowly collapsing holonet antenna – plenty of cover for them to low crawl towards the edge and look over the side without being spotted.

The crowd was gathered in a relatively large cleared space that was just at the edge of the Beggar’s Quarter, where the haphazard streets began to even out into a wider, cleaner pattern. Imperial shuttles and merchant ships were riding and falling from a spot only a few blocks past it - the space port they were aiming for, Jyn guessed. It was so close, but with this mess in between them and it...well, they'd need a way around.

Of course, easier said than done. Stormtroopers ringed the open space - some kind of market area, perhaps - and the space itself was packed with people. They were mostly ragged, and mostly nonhuman, Jyn noted. They were of all ages, from ancient looking beings to babes in arms.

There was only one spot in the whole space – the far northeast corner, just a small, roped off hovering platform - that wasn’t crowded full of nervous-looking citizens. It wasn’t empty, though. Jyn tried not to look.

“The Oath,” the captain said in a tight voice, and Jyn bit her lip.

On one side of the space, an Imperial officer and a squad of four deathtroopers stood on a raised platform. A young human male, dressed in a neatly pressed suit with a black armband that marked him as a “local volunteer,” stood just behind the officer, tapping helpfully on a datapad. The regular ‘troopers were dragging people out of the crowd, bringing them to the edge of the platform in groups of ten, forcing them to stand and look up at the impassive face of the bored officer.

“Repeat after me,” he said into a megaphone. “I swear this sacred oath.”

 _I swear this sacred oath_ , the ten chosen people murmured, more or less in unison – all except one, an angry looking Khommite who simply stood, his arms at his side and a scowl on his grey face.

“That I shall render unconditional obedience to Emperor Palpatine,” the officer droned, not even looking up.

 _That I shall render unconditional obedience to Emperor Palpatine_ , nine of the ten muttered in uneasy mimicry.

Jyn glanced aside, and saw the captain’s eyes were narrowed and his face warped into an expression she had only seen on him once before – when the Star Destroyer came down, the night of the invasion. It was a bitterly cold kind of hatred, sharp as razors around the edges, and tinged with a deeply personal pain.

 _What did they take from you_ , she wondered, _to put that ice in your soul?_

He turned his head suddenly and looked straight at her, and though he didn’t speak, she recognized the answer in his dark eyes. _Everything._

“To exercise my every ability in service to the Empire-”

_To exercise my every ability in service to the Empire-_

The local volunteer was staring at the Khommite. At his gesture, one of the ‘troopers moved forward and grabbed the sentient by the arm. “Hey, you!” He yanked hard, spinning the Khommite around roughly. “Are you refusing the Oath of Citizenship?”

The Khommite glared at him, yanking his arm back and speaking in a guttural language.

“Can’t you even speak Basic?” the ‘trooper’s mechanized voice dripped with staticy contempt. He raised his voice and his hand, pointing at the Khommite’s chest. “Oath. Of. Citizenship.”

The Khommite spread his rough grey hands, still scowling, and said something else in his own language.

“And I am prepared, whenever asked,” the officer on the platform continued, nearly to the end of the recitation.

_And I am prepared, whenever asked-_

“Take the Oath!” The ‘trooper was nearly shouting. “OATH, you stupid greyback!” The Khommite shuffled back, his hands were raised now, his ridged face still looked angry, but his body language, Jyn realized, was much more frightened.

“He doesn’t understand,” Jyn whispered. “He doesn’t speak Basic.”

“As a loyal servant, to surrender my life when asked.” The officer with the megaphone finished the Oath and immediately pulled out his datapad, tapping at it in a listless way. Behind him, the volunteer was watching the Khommite with hunched shoulders and a wide-eyed stare.

 _As a loyal servant_ , the other nine repeated, although the Rodian nearest to the Khommite was edging slowly away.

“On your knees, hands over your head!” The ‘trooper shouted, shoving at the Khommite. The tall grey being stumbled back, surprise making him flail out for a handhold. Jyn felt her body tense a moment before it happened. The ‘trooper, more than willing to believe the Khommite’s reaching hands were an attack, raised his rifle and pulled the trigger.

The Khommite dropped like a stone. The other citizens flinched or screeched, backing away, only to come up hard against a wall of white armor. On the stage, the volunteer looked paler than before, and he turned his head away, clearly trying not to vomit. The officer, however, merely looked up from his datapad, sighed, and raised the megaphone again. “To surrender my life when asked,” he repeated irritably, and then glared pointedly at the nine until they muttered it back.

The officer made a vague gesture to the ‘troopers, and two picked up the Khommite’s body and hauled it to the northeast corner, where they piled it on the hovering platform with the others who must have failed (or refused, or simply not understood) the Oath of Citizenship. The breeze shifted, blowing from the north, and Jyn caught the faint scent of something rotten. The officer pointed to the crowd, and another ten "citizens" were herded forward.

The volunteer said something to the nearest deathtrooper, who flicked his shock baton carelessly to the side. The young man walked off the platform with an unsteady stride, and vanished behind the row of ‘troopers into a nearby building. Command center, if she had to guess, Saw’s gruff voice in her ear ordering her to mark the spot, check for structural weaknesses where a grenade or two could bring the whole thing down.

“Jyn,” Cassian’s voice was close to her ear, his weight pressing against her side. “Jyn. We have to go. Come on, Jyn, come on, we can get around to the west, look.”

Jyn blinked, swallowing back the bile on her throat and shoving away the memories of Saw’s voice. She looked at Cassian, and though his rage burned cold instead of hot, she recognized the same fury in his face that she knew must be on her own. “Around to the west,” he said again.

“We can’t let them see,” she told him harshly. Sanduni was barely holding it together as it was. Maddel and Inkari weren’t as far behind her as they tried to pretend. Lorga might run out there and try to tear out some throats. They couldn’t see this. They shouldn’t see this.

“Okay,” he nodded, and she realized that the tight band around her wrist was his hand. “We can manage that, if we’re careful. Come on, Jyn. Come on. Let it go. There’s nothing we can do right now. Come on.”

She let him cajole her off the roof and back down the ladder, stumbling a little when she hit the ground below again. He paused once his feet were on the ground, too, pressing one hand against the building for a moment with his eyes closed. Jyn stepped close and slid one hand across his shoulders, digging her fingers into his jacket for a moment and leaning against his side. “Come on,” she murmured. “No time.”

“No,” he agreed softly, pushing back from the wall. “No time at all.”

“Hey!” A sharp, cultured voice suddenly yelped from a few meters away. “I know her!”

Jyn whirled, blaster out, and saw the volunteer was standing at the end of the narrow street, pointing straight at them. This close, she could make out his features, his sandy-brown hair pulled into a tail at his nape and his blue eyes locked on Jyn. Familiar blue eyes.

Jyn’s breath seized in her throat. “Sutherland,” she choked.

She’d followed him to the space port, but she hadn’t stayed to make sure he actually _left_.

Two deathtroopers appeared around the corner, and Sutherland lunged forward, his finger outstretched like a weapon. “She’s _Alliance!_ ”

The bolt took him through the heart, and Sutherland hit the ground before his face had time to register his surprise.

Cassian whirled, rifle still in his hands, and lunged at Jyn, and if she hadn’t already been stepping backwards he might have knocked her to the ground. As it was, his shoulder clipped hard against her, partially spinning her as his hand clamped down on her wrist again. _“_ Jyn, _run!”_

Green bolts hissed and shattered the stone above their heads.

Jyn ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I had to cut this chapter in half again because a Point needed to be made and also I have no self control. (sorry for the cliffhanger, I hate doing that.)
> 
> The song Jyn is trying to recall in the beginning of the chapter is [“The Old Astronomer”](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Old_Astronomer) by Sara Williams, which is not actually a song at all, but a poem. I just liked the idea that someone might have made it a song. The lines she’s thinking of as she gazes at the starlight are:  
>  _“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;_  
>  I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”  
> EDIT: This has, in fact, [been made into a song!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xX-gf1CNz28) Thanks, [PhoenixIsForLife](http://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixIsForLife/pseuds/PhoenixIsForLife), for this version and [this even more haunting version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNWQMR51h4k), too!
> 
> The Partisan puzzle box resembles the [Cypher Disk](https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/uncharted/images/0/0c/Cipher_disk.png/revision/latest?cb=20111124203008) from the Uncharted video games, except instead of Greek letters and Arabic numerals I filled it with aurebesh letters, colored shapes, and symbols inspired by various Rogue One friends I’ve made on the internet. If you thought you recognized your tumblr/AO3 name somewhere in Jyn’s mental ramblings, you were probably right (thanks for the inspiration).
> 
> “She wasn’t looking for a knight, she was looking for a sword” = one of a series of [extremely rebelcaptain-friendly poetry snippets](http://www.yourtango.com/2016286387/16-life-love-quotes-mysterious-internet-poet-atticus) by internet poet atticus.
> 
> I know I referenced desert wind a lot here, but I was listening to [desert sounds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jLtAAEyMDo&t=9874s) while I wrote the first half of this chapter, and it seeped in.
> 
> The Oath of Citizenship is a tweaked version of the [Oath of Obedience](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Oath_of_Obedience) used in the Empire for riot troopers. but it made sense to me that they would press newly conquered "citizens" into making some public display of obedience, en masse. This is a psychological tactic pioneered by the Romans when they [decimated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_\(Roman_army\)) newly conquered armies, lands, or large scale mutinies. Nothing like a show of power that also personally crushes every individual in the crowd to really plant the idea that you have no chance to resist, and it's always better to submit.
> 
> Since it's been awhile, Hugh Sutherland was the recruit from Chapter 5 (Ghost) who chickened out and ran home as soon as he realized that being a Rebel wasn't all glory and games but actual sacrifice and work for the sake of people who had no reason to feel any gratitude towards him. Except it turns out he didn't run home after all, and Cassian's concern that he could identify Jyn turned out to be valid. 
> 
> Damn this chapter got dark. Sorry about that.


	14. Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She met his eyes, ignored the barrel of the rifle pointed at her head, and tried to forgive him.
> 
> _Do it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written while listening to [this mix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIZAQm6meO8), in case anyone was interested. 
> 
> Sorry about this.

 

Jyn ran.

The air was thick with smoke and crackling with red and green bolts of energy – running through a battle field always felt like running through a heavy storm, complete with the thunder of shouting voices, the lightening flashes of weapon discharge, and…shit, _tank repulsors_. “Down!” Cassian roared, shoving at her shoulder, and they both dove for the dirt as a fist-sized ball of white-hot plasma smashed into the stone wall above their heads, sending glowing chunks of flash-heated rock flying. They brought out the fucking tanks? For one rebel?

Jyn had just a moment to think _what the actual fuck_ before she was scrambling up and hauling at Cassian’s jacket, dragging him upright and stumbling through the streets.

“Captain, there is a disturbance at the gathering you were watching,” K2SO said crisply in her ear, the comms scratchy with background noise.

Jyn veered hard right and bodily shoved Cassian aside, throwing both of them out of the path of the ‘troopers she could just see forming in the haze ahead. “I know, Kay,” he shouted into his own comm, throwing an arm around her waist and slinging her around him, pushing her ahead and pressing close to her back as they resumed running. “Get our people to the port, now!”

It was utter chaos from every side, so Jyn registered the rolling cacophony of the oncoming stampede a moment late -  she rounded the corner and found herself rushing headlong against a horde of panicked people. Behind her, Cassian shouted something, and she thought she felt his hand brush across the back of her neck, but then they were in the heart of the storm and his touch jerked away. Someone slammed into her left shoulder, spinning her sideways, and Jyn had to stagger and dodge, off balance and desperately trying to keep her balance as she danced on suddenly uneven ground. Something hard hit her back, an Abyssin plowed in front of her, the white of his huge eye shining with terror, and Jyn flailed – _keep going, west, there’s the space port, it’s all we have - Cassian! Where is_ – but there was no time to think. From the right – _deathtroopers!_ Dodge left, around the Chadra-Fan squealing as he plummeted down and vanished beneath a hundred pounding feet, up and over the pile of stone rubble, _blaster fire! duck!_ and down the narrow alley to the right again. _West, had to go west_ , and the mob was thinning, she was moving cross-ways from its panicked path, able to stand fully upright and not in danger of being crushed under panicked feet.

“- appears the Guardians are attempting another offensive action in the east,” the droid’s precise tone filtered through the pounding in her ears. “Several stormtrooper units are being diverted to that front rather than deal with the lower-class civilian district.”

“Keep moving!” The captain barked in response, then, “Jyn! Jyn, if you can hear me, report! _Jyn!_ ”

“I’m here,” she gasped, scrambling for her collar…but her hand came away empty. Shit. _Shit!_ Her comm was gone – knocked off in the stampede?

“Jyn!” He was still calling for her over the comm, his voice rough and tinged with desperation. “Jyn, report, damnit! _Where are you?”_

“I’m here,” she whispered, but there was nothing she could do to reach - _West. The space port._ They’d meet there. Jyn dropped her head and charged through the Klatooinians huddled in the opening of her alley, and burst out into the streets. There were too many people, all running frantically for shelter, but the heavy tread of ‘trooper boots and the threatening rumble of tank repulsors were far away enough that people were moving with some awareness, at least, not blindly crashing through the streets. She slipped through the throng, eyes on the ships that were still rising and sinking at the space port – good, whatever was happening hadn’t re-initiated lock down. The Imperials weren’t worried enough about it to even stop the merchant ships from shifting in and out. If Jyn could just get in that port, find the right ship, there was a damn good chance she’d be out of here before the alert that they had surely issued (damn Sutherland! Damn _her_ , for not following him all the way, for not making sure – _fuck, what did it matter now? Keep moving.)_ The alert for a rebel female human was probably in the system already, the Imps were infuriatingly efficient about that sort of thing. But if she got away now, before anyone scanned her or reviewed any security footage, well, there was a good chance that it would never be connected to her.

“Jyn,” Cassian said in her ear, his voice low and harsh. “Answer me. _Please,_ Jyn.”

_I’m here_ , _I’m sorry,_ but there was nothing she could do. _Keep moving._

“I recommend you head for the space port, Captain,” Kay said with a hint of admonishment in this tone. “It is likely that if she is capable, the sergeant will head for the last known rendezvous point.”

Silence on the comm. A tank thundered past on the street ahead of her, and Jyn darted to the side, around the other side of the building. The gates to the space port came into sight – finally – but four ‘troopers stood at rigid attention in front of them, with two Imperial officers leaning against the gate itself, conversing in low, almost bored tones. Their eyes, however, were watchful and cruel. Too much was happening, the Imps were all on alert. She’d never talk her way in.

The wall? No, too many TIE fighters and air patrols whizzing by – whatever the Guardians were up to in the eastern side of the city, it was drawing a lot of air support. No discernible pattern, either. She’d never get over without being spotted.

Access panels. What had Maddel said? The maintenance workers never sealed off the access panels to the pressure coils under the landing pads. If she could get _out_ of a space port through those panels, then she could get _in_ the same way, right? She’d just crawl through the small, tight, dark spaces under the rock and dirt and…and...

And get to safety. That was all she had to do. Easy day.

Jyn pulled her scarf tighter around her face, walked swiftly until she came to the port’s outer wall, and then carefully ran her hand along the stone at shoulder height, where she remembered the panel had been. She walked as slowly as she dared, feeling for cracks, catches, anything to indicate a small door. What had that access panel looked like on the outside, when they had bust out through it? She hadn’t looked. Maybe it had been painted or…

…hanging open, having clearly been torn almost off it’s hinges.

Jyn stared at the barely-intact access panel hanging off the side of the wall, and fought the surge of hope mixed with trepidation. The recruits, maybe? Kay had torn the first access panel off the wall, in the last space port. Maybe he’d done it again, here. Were the recruits and the droid all inside?

Was Cassian?

Only one way to know.

This maintenance tunnel through the pressure coils was even smaller than the last, or at least it felt that way to Jyn. At one point, she even had to drop to her belly and low crawl through the space. Surely there was no way Lorga, Inkari, or Kay could have got through here? Or was there more than one path through this crushing, dark labyrinth? She couldn’t remember if Maddel had been guiding her much, before. There were multiple gaps between the coils and the pipes, branching off into dark paths.  Was she going the right way, or was she just worming her way further and further into some kind of tight space, crawling in aimless circles in the dark while the distant thunder of war echoed above her?

Jyn’s palms were clammy, her heart racing, and her vision was starting to blur with panic when finally, _finally_ , she saw the faint light of an open panel ahead. The roar of spacecraft engines drowned out almost every other sound as she drew close, but she could still pick up the high-pitched scream of blasters discharging irregularly. Not in the port itself, it sounded like, but damn close.

Jyn took a deep breath, grabbed the edges of the open panel, and heaved herself through.

The daylight was fading now into twilight, but several bright white industrial lights illuminated the port, and a squad of ‘troopers marched almost directly at Jyn.

She dropped immediately, trying to flatten herself behind a docking console, but it was too late. “You there!” The mechanized voice was barely audible over the noise of the port. “Halt!”

Behind the ‘troopers, a HWK-290 light freighter sat on the nearest launch pad, it’s lights flashing in the pre-launch configuration. The side bay door was open, and Jyn caught a flash of purple, a Lasat leaning out of the side and then gone again too quickly to see his face.

They were prepped, they could launch at any moment. Jyn bit her lip, listening to the ‘troopers moving towards her. “Come out and drop any weapons!” The ‘trooper in charge called, and she thought she heard the click of safeties being disengaged.

If she could get to the shuttle…

Was Cassian onboard? Her comms were still silent.

She would have to risk it. If he wasn’t there, then she would…she would…

She would come back.

Alright.

The ‘trooper in charge rounded the console. “I said come out and drop any - ”

Jyn’s right truncheon crushed his windpipe, and the momentum of her swing flung him back, arms flailing as he crashed to the ground and rolled, choking. Blaster shots whined through the air immediately, a lightening storm again, she thought vaguely in the small part of her mind that always detached from these moments. The rest of her, however, was very much focused on the present. She went up and over the console, lashing out with one heavy boot at the nearest white skull-mask. Something grabbed her left arm, a hard grip that twisted her wrist painfully and forced her to drop her left truncheon. She spun, smashing her right truncheon down on the ‘trooper’s elbow hard enough to hear both armor and bone crack.

Something scorched across her left thigh, a brief but searing pain. A chain - one of the auto-restrain types, thrown from an Imperial hand at her. The wicked tip of the heavy metal chain had struck her upper thigh, drawing blood and sending hot spikes of pain through her leg, but it wasn’t important, move forward. In the open shuttle door, Maddel’s blonde head peered around the door frame, eyes wide and face pale.

Another flash of scorching pain, the metallic clank of the chains flying through the air, and this time burning into the top of her left shoulder. Jyn ducked, twisted, pulled her blaster and fired back without looking. Still too many ‘troopers, all she could see was segmented white armor, but if she dodged left then-

Hot, sharp pain around her ankle, and the chain jerked her feet from under her. She slammed into the ground, the impact ripping the air from her lungs and throwing dirt up into her eyes and nose. More pain spiking up her legs and setting her nerves on fire. Blind, gasping, Jyn scrambled for her feet, but there were rough hands on her arms, yanking at her hair, closing around her throat, and she was being forced to her knees –

She was dead. She was caught and she was dead.

The shuttle was somewhere on her left now, and she thought she could hear someone scream. _Go, go, leave, don’t let them catch you too, don’t let it all be for nothing, **go** , Force damn it!_

Through the forest of white-clad legs, she saw him.

He was kneeling behind another console, his rifle raised, his face…

_I’m sorry,_ Jyn thought. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to do this._

She looked straight into his eyes, ignored the barrel of the rifle pointed at her head, and tried to forgive him.

_Do it_.

Something smacked her hard on the back of the skull, enough to make her dizzy but not enough to knock her out. Jyn gasped, wrenched her arms against the grip on her wrists – they hadn’t put binders on her – were they just going to kill her? No…except that would be better, wouldn’t it? That would be – it would not be his burden. But the chain was gone from her ankles, and one of the 'troopers was shouting for binders now, yes, they meant to take her. She was caught.

She found him again, still crouched in the shadows, but his rifle was tilted, raised but not quite aimed at her face. No, that wasn’t right, _don’t let them take me. I don’t want to die but don’t let them take me_.

He was fumbling one handed with his collar. His comm? Telling the recruits to go?

No, something else, something he pulled from the small box near his throat, something he shoved into his mouth and then raised his rifle again. Aimed for her head, his face blank, his eyes dark as the storm around them.

_Good_ , she thought, and then _keep your eyes open, and I will, too, I promise. Look at me._

“Get this one to the check point,” a ‘trooper buzzed over her head. “There was a call for a rebel female in the area. Might be her.”

Jyn met Cassian’s eyes, and nodded.

_Please._

The ‘troopers still upright were all looking at her, rifles pointed inward, the rest of them struggling to rise from where they’d fallen. None of them were paying any attention to the rest of the port.

So Jak Inkari’s arrival hit the ‘troopers like a freight truck.

_“All living things in turn must fight!”_ The Lasat bellowed in a voice loud enough to drown the shuttle engine’s rumble, sending three ‘troopers flying with the sheer momentum of his tackle. Jyn craned her head and looked up (and up and up, shit, she’d forgotten how _large_ the man was), just in time to see a massive purple hand reaching for her shirt front. Inkari picked her up like a half-empty ration pack and flung her towards the shuttle, clear of the shouting ‘troopers.

_“At death you either stand or fly!”_ He roared, backhanding a ‘trooper across the head hard enough to send the armored body sailing through the air and into the wall of the port. He grabbed another by the throat and spun, flinging the helpless rag-dolling trooper into two more. The remaining ‘troopers screamed and flailed away, trying to escape the long reach of the raging Lasat.

Something grabbed Jyn’s arm, heaving her upright from where she lay in the dirt, stunned and blinking. She twisted – _Cassian!_ – and latched on to his wrist, disoriented and nauseous but determined at least not to be separated again.

He leaned to the side, spat out something small and red, and then yelled, “Let’s go!”

‘Trooper on the left – Jyn flicked her knife from her sleeve and buried it in his throat, yanked the blade free – ‘trooper on the right reaching for her, no time to react, but Cassian stepped forward and his hand flashed – his fist hit the ‘trooper’s eye, wait, was that blood? How had he-? Cassian ripped away his hand and the bloody blade of her katar came free from the ‘trooper’s eye, dripping bright red down onto his knuckles.

“ _It is how you meet -_ ” Behind them, the Lasat’s battle roar faltered as the whine of blaster fire filled the air again. Jyn threw a look back over her shoulder, Cassian’s iron grip on her arm dragging her towards the shuttle. Inkari staggered as a bolt hit his torso, then surged forward, heavy fists slamming down on another ‘trooper’s head. “ _How you meet the coming night,_ ” he shouted again, as solid and certain as before, as if dark purple blood was not now gushing down his side and splattering on the dirt.

Arms around her waist, Cassian lifting Jyn, throwing her into the shuttle. Maddel and Sanduni’s hands on her shoulders, pulling her in, and she twisted wildly in their grip, reaching for Cassian, reaching for Inkari. Blaster fire shrieked past her head – the ‘troopers had noticed where she went, some of them broke away from the rampaging Lasat to turn towards them. They had seconds at best, seconds to launch and get away before the Imps called in air support and shot the rebels out of the sky.

_“This proves your worth,”_ Inkari bellowed, even as the auto-restrain chains lashed out from the ‘troopers, wrapping around his throat and arms, making him stagger as they tightened and dug cruelly into his flesh. He threw back his head and strained against the bonds, teeth bared and bloody and eyes aflame. His voice was hoarse but no less strident, proud and furious and unafraid. “ _This proves your worth in Honor’s sight!”_ he howled, and wrenched the chains so hard that two of the 'troopers staggered and fell to their knees, more surging forward to grab the loose ends. 

“Go!” Cassian was shouting over Jyn’s head, his rifle pointed now at the ‘troopers but his face turned towards the cockpit. “ _Package secured, go! Go!”_

“Jak!” Sanduni screamed out of the open door, but Lorga grabbed her by the arms and hauled her back, turning her away, pinning the shrieking Twi’lek to her chest. Maddel was already staggering toward the cockpit where Jyn could just see the outline of Kay’s shoulder, and only Jyn and Cassian were left to watch their final recruit forced to his knees, blood pooling under his leg, face turning grey as the chain around his throat constricted.

_They stopped firing at him_ , Jyn thought stupidly. _They aren’t going to kill him either._

The dread in her belly sat like a lead weight. Imperials were never kind to prisoners, but non-humans, especially the strong ones, the dangerous ones…Jak Inkari would last for days. Maybe weeks. He would suffer every second of it.

Jyn turned and looked up at Cassian as the shuttle whined and jolted, and began to lift.

He raised his rifle, leaned out of the shuddering open door, and fired.

She had been right, out in the desert. He knew how to make it quick.

The bay door creaked in loud protest as it finally slid shut, and the shuttle pitched hard to the side as the pilot yanked the controls into a sharp bank. Jyn fell to her hands and knees, scrabbling desperately for something to hold. Cassian landed on his knees beside her, dropping his rifle, grabbing her shoulders and trying to brace her.

Another hard bank, Sanduni shrieked as the abrupt change in pitch threw her and Lorga to the deck. Near the cockpit, a woman was shouting something about gravity wells and incoming TIE fighters. Kay’s precise voice answered, and the shuttle pitched wildly again. Jyn closed her eyes, leaned into Cassian, wrapped her good arm around his waist and told herself to breathe. There was nothing she could do now. They would be shot out of the sky, or they would make it to hyperspace.

Cassian’s heartbeat thundered under her ear, his arms hard around her shoulders.

The woman shouted again, the shuttle groaned under the stress of whatever the pilot was doing, and then –

Blue light filled the shuttle, filtering in through the viewports, and the shaking stopped, settling into the gentle hum of hyperspace flight.

“We made it,” Sanduni whispered from somewhere behind Jyn.

“Andor, you alive back there?” The unfamiliar woman’s voice called, and Jyn blinked and looked over Cassian’s shoulder to see a human fem with caf-dark skin and curly hair piled into a neat pilot’s knot, her face relieved but her eyes worried. Kay sat beside her in the co-pilot’s spot, and Maddel stood between them, hands clutching at both the seats but otherwise motionless.

“Yes,” the captain said from over Jyn’s head, his voice distant and devoid of emotion. “Alive.” She raised her head and looked at him, but his eyes were focused on the viewport visible past the pilot and Kay. He did not look down to meet her gaze, but one hand moved lightly from her back to the shallow gash on her thigh, then drifted up to the cut on her shoulder.

“Whew. Well, that was a lot more goo than I was hoping for,” the woman said almost cheerfully, turning forward in the cockpit again. “But hey, package secure and all aboard.”

“Not all,” Maddel said sharply.  “We...we left one.”

“Oh,” the pilot’s voice turned sober. “Shit. Sorry.”

Cassian’s arms dropped from Jyn’s shoulders. He didn’t pull away or push her upright. He simply knelt on the hard deck of the freighter’s communal space, staring at the rushing light of hyperspace.

“What will they do to him?” Lorga asked abruptly. She was sitting on one of the benches built into the bulkhead of the communal space, Sanduni tucked under one arm, her injured leg sticking out in front of her at an awkward angle. “ _Jak_ ,” she said his name harshly, as if they might have forgotten it. “They caught Jak, didn’t they? Don’t we have to, I don’t know, save him? Get him, at least?” Her voice lowered to a growl, angry and transparently urgent. “Before he tells them anything, right? We have to get him.”

Slowly, Jyn pulled away from the motionless captain. Sanduni was watching her with wide, frightened eyes. Maddel peered back over her shoulder, although she didn’t seem willing or able to release her grip on the pilot seats. They didn’t know, she realized. They hadn’t seen.

Jyn planted her feet and folded her hands behind her back, her head high, her voice steady. “Jak Inkari gave his life so that we might escape,” she said firmly. “He attacked those Imperials knowing that there was no way we could extract him from their midst, knowing they would kill him for daring to stand against them. I’m sorry,” she softened her tone a little, meeting Lorga’s eyes squarely. “May the Force be with him,” she added after a beat, feeling like a fraud and a liar.

“He died with honor,” Maddel said quietly from the front of the ship.

Sanduni turned her face into Lorga’s shirt, silent and still.

“Yeah,” Lorga grunted after a long, silent moment. “He did.”

The captain rose to his feet, and stepped towards the cockpit like he was consciously choosing to move each muscle individually. Jyn had seen drunk men walk like that, or injured ones. There was blood on his hands, but it was just the katar, still oozing the ‘trooper’s blood down his fingers. She reached out and caught his wrist as he passed her, stopping him short. Carefully, she forced his clenched fingers open and slid the katar free. He flinched slightly as she let go of his wrist, as if he wanted to reach back, then let his hand fall limp to his side. Then without a word, he moved to the cockpit. Maddel finally dropped her terrified grip on the pilot’s seat and leaned out of his way, allowing him to step between the pilot and his droid.

He never looked at her.

“Hey, Andor,” the woman said, not quite gently. _Andor,_ Jyn thought. _But was that an alias? A last name? His real name? Did the pilot know?_ “Set course for Alpha Base?”

He murmured something, too low for Jyn to hear, though his head jerked in a short nod. She clenched her fist around the handle of the katar and turned away. There was a medkit on the wall near Lorga. She needed to get herself cleaned up, staunch the bleeding before she made a mess all over the ship floor.

“We’re about seven hours from Alpha Base,” she told Lorga’s grim face and Sanduni’s still form. “Any injuries?”

“No, Sergeant,” Lorga answered heavily. “Nothing that medkit can fix,” she added darkly, glancing at the bay door.

Jyn nodded, flipped open the medkit, rooted with one hand for bacta patches and a stimulant shot if they had one. She found the patches but came up empty on the stim - damn it, she probably wouldn’t make it seven hours, she’d have to kip on the floor and nap. She hated doing that when the recruits were watching; but there were two small crew bunkrooms in the back of the shuttle. She could claim one of those, probably.

She slapped one small patch on her thigh, then tugged her shirt and then her scarf aside, pausing as she pulled at the starry fabric. Fuck, it was almost sodden with blood. She unwound it entirely, laying it across her hands and frowning at the splatters of her own blood soaking through the embroidered pattern.

“Water with acetic acid,” Sanduni said in a small voice from Lorga’s side. Jyn looked up, met the Twi’lek’s wet, exhausted eyes. “Like vinegar,” Sanduni said in a stronger voice. “For blood stains. Try to keep it from getting dry before you wash it, too. It bakes the, um, the blood in.”

“Thank you,” Jyn said quietly. Sanduni tilted her chin down fractionally, then closed her eyes and turned away again.

_I’m sorry_ , Jyn though again a little randomly.

A light step, and Cassian – the captain, his face blank and impassive – walked slowly past them, ducking into the pilot’s bunk. Kay slouched behind him, and they closed the door without comment.

Jyn frowned. Something had been wrong with his eyes. She’d thought the glassy stare was some sort of shock, or guilt for killing – for not being able to save Inkari from the Imperials. But there was something else wrong, his pupils blown out and his skin too flushed.

Even if she was wrong, she thought a little self-righteously, slapping another bacta patch on her shoulder and balling up her scarf as small as she could, even if he was only going into shock, he’d need more than a battle droid to help him.

She pulled her canteen, still miraculously clipped to her belt and with a few swallows of water still sloshing in the bottom, and stuffed her scarf through the opening. She shook it hard, then pulled the now soaked scarf free and draped it carefully over a nearby bar embedded into the bulkhead. She used the now soiled water in the canteen to rinse off the katar and wiped it clean with a small bandage from the medkit. She tucked it back into the hidden pocket in her trousers – it felt odd, actually, though it had only been a few days – and then snapped the kit shut and moved towards the cockpit.

Maddel was sitting in the copilot seat now, talking quietly to the pilot when Jyn approached. “Hey, you must be Sergeant Hallik,” the woman said pleasantly. “Been hearing some pretty awesome things about you,” she gestured towards Maddel, who shrugged at Jyn and went back to fiddling with her fraying jacket sleeve.

“And you?” Jyn asked, too tired to sound anything but abrupt.

The pilot didn’t seem to mind. “Lieutenant Shara Bey,” she said politely, reaching back briefly to shake Jyn’s hand before turning her attention back to the controls. “I’m one of Andor’s usual pick up pilots, when he gets himself into trouble like this. They like to send me because I know when to wait and when to bug out.” She flashed a cocky grin over her shoulder. “And I’m a damn good evasion pilot.”

“Andor,” Jyn said flatly, zeroing in on what she really wanted to know. Maddel looked up from her sleeve, then back down again.

Bey raised an eyebrow, then leaned back in her seat and hummed. “Captain Andor,” she said carefully. “I wasn’t told if he had a code name, this time around,” she admitted. “He tell you his name?”

The woman wouldn’t give her anything, Jyn saw, except confirmation. So she swallowed and took the risk. “Cassian,” she said quietly.

Bey’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Yeah, that’s it,” she said easily. “Captain Cassian Andor. Guess you just didn’t get the formal introduction.”

“No,” Jyn agreed quietly.

“Sarge?” Maddel asked softly.

Jyn shook her head, turned towards the back of the shuttle. “I’ll be in the crew bunk. If anything comes up, call me.”

“Yeah, get some rest,” Bey’s eyes skimmed from the bacta patch on her shoulder to the one peeking through her torn trousers on her thigh. “I’ll wake you before we get in orbit, okay? And, hey, Sergeant?” Jyn paused. “Check on Andor for me, will you? Something was…not right, there.”

The dread in Jyn’s belly hadn’t really dissipated yet, but it had lessened. Bey’s careful tone solidified it again – this woman clearly knew him, and she’d seen something wrong, too. An injury he’d hid, maybe. Severe shock.

Jyn marched back through the shuttle, grabbing the medkit as she passed. The bunk door was still closed, but not locked. Jyn slapped it open.

The captain had stripped off his parka and holster. He was sitting on the bunk in his grimy shirt and trousers, his back against the wall, his hands settled on his knees with the palms up. Jyn was almost certain that when he’d walked in here, only his right hand had been smeared with blood, but now both palms were bloody. Kay was standing in front of him, holding a small grey box.

Cassian jerked as she stepped in, but didn’t get up. Kay’s servos whirred louder for a moment, and then stilled back to his normal low hum. “Results compiled,” he announced. “Would you like to hear them, or should I wait until you send the sergeant back out?”

Jyn’s jaw tightened. The cut on his left hand was small, deliberate, and the droid was holding a specimen scanner, a device specifically designed to detect toxic substances in organic life forms.

_(He leaned to the side, spat out something small and red, and then yelled, “Let’s go!”)_

“What are the results?” she asked softly.

“You are not authorized to-”

“Tell her,” Cassian said abruptly, snapping his eyes away and staring blindly at the wall behind the droid.

Kay whirred, an indignant sound, and then said, “Very well. It’s a bad idea, but very well. Your toxicology scan has come back four percent positive for potassium cyanide. You are unlikely to die from the poison, but you will experience symptoms such as weakness, dizziness, and shortness of breath, and nausea. Recommended care includes rest and water.”

“Rest and water,” Jyn repeated a touch incredulously, because they were discussing the fact that Cassian had apparently _poisoned_ himself, and all the droid had was ‘rest and water.’

“I am not a medical droid,” Kay told her a touch sharply. “My databases are more concerned with causing injury than healing it.”

“Thank you, Kay, I’ll take your advice,” Cassian said dully, still not looking at either of them. “Please go back out and keep an eye on the recruits.”

“You expect them to respond poorly to the death of their comrade,” Kay replied, and either didn’t notice the flinch in Cassian’s hand or chose not to comment. “Very well. I will maintain order.”

He slouched past Jyn, who stepped aside to let him go but made no attempt to follow. She heard his heavy footfalls pause behind her, and then the door slid shut.

“Potassium cyanide,” Jyn said into the heavy silence.

Cassian closed his eyes.

She dropped the medkit with a heavy thunk on the floor, and marched to him, taking the spot that Kay had recently vacated and folding her arms. “Suicide pill,” she said angrily. “That’s what it was. You were going to - ” She choked the words off, pressed her lips together.

“Yes,” he said simply, then fell silent again, eyes still closed.

“ _Why?_ ”

His face contorted slightly, jaw clenched and eyes squeezed stubbornly shut, and his voice was rough and dark when he answered. “Because even I have fucking _limits_ , Jyn.”

The raw hatred in his voice scraped across her nerves, twisted the dread in her belly, made her feel as sick as he probably felt right now. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, hunting for something to say, something to make it – well, not _right_ , but _better._

“You couldn’t have saved him,” she whispered, and winced a little because that wasn’t the right thing to say, but it was the best she had.

“No,” he agreed, eyes still screwed shut, face flushed with the lingering poison in his veins. “I could only kill him.”

_It was almost me,_ Jyn thought, but knew better than to ever say. _I’m glad it wasn’t me_ , a smaller, selfish piece of her heart whispered. _I’m glad it wasn’t you_. She swallowed, forced that voice deep down into the cave with all the rest of her dark memories, and focused again on his face.

“You should get rest, too,” he said, his voice suddenly empty and distant and achingly tired. “There’s another bunk in the next compartment.”

_Command labeled me a liability,_ Jyn thought randomly. _They know something about me that made me a dangerous, if the Empire caught me._ She didn’t know what it was (no, she really didn’t, _no,_ because _he_ was dead and that was all there was to it), but if it _was_ because of her f– because of someone long gone, well, there was a really good chance that he would want nothing to do with her. There was a decent chance that once they were back at base, he’d drift off back into whatever void Intel spooks existed in, above her clearance level and out of her reach. He’d be back to whatever the hells he did in the secret heart of the Alliance, and she’d be back to hovering around it’s edges, lone soldiers lost in the shuffle of faces.

But right now, she thought as she looked at his tense face and his clenched hands, right now she could reach him.

Right now, they didn’t have to be alone.

Jyn tugged off her gloves, dropped them carelessly to the floor. She shimmied out of her now useless weapon harness, both her truncheons and her blaster lost in the space port far behind them, and dropped that too. He didn’t react to the clatter of buckles and leather, but when she stretched out a hand and brushed her fingertips against his cheek, he jumped and flinched away.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a strange voice, still refusing to look at her. “I know I promised not to - ” He stopped, drew in a ragged breath. “I promised you I would not leave anyone behind.”

Oh. No wonder he wouldn’t look at her.

Jyn braced her hands on his shoulders and slid into his lap.

She felt him go rigid in shock, frozen as she pushed forward and wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders. She settled carefully, mindful of her injured leg and shoulder, then dragged on hand up to card through his hair, the other to dig tightly into the fabric of his shirt.

“You didn’t,” she said quietly, resting her chin on his shoulder and finally letting her aching body relax against him. “You’re a good man, Cassian.”

His breath caught, and then he surged into motion, flinging his arms around her and hauling her tight against him. He pressed his face tightly against her shoulder, shuddering, and she felt a warm wetness trickle down her neck. She kissed his shoulder and held him just as tightly as he wept silently against her. Outside, the stretched blue-white lights of passing stars flowed around the shuttle as it carried them away from Jedha, away from their lost recruit, away from their brief time together. Seven hours from now, they would walk out into the hangar of Yavin IV and probably never speak again.

Inside the shuttle, Cassian cupped his hand around the back of her neck like she was precious and hid his face against her neck, Jyn curled herself around him like she could protect them both, and it was enough.

Jyn twined her fingers through Cassian’s hair and watched the light go by.

For now, it was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And death shall have no dominion._  
>  Dead man naked they shall be one  
> With the man in the wind and the west moon;   
> When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,  
> They shall have stars at elbow and foot;   
> Though they go mad they shall be sane,  
> Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;   
> Though lovers be lost love shall not;   
> And death shall have no dominion. 
> 
> \- [Dylan Thomas](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-death-shall-have-no-dominion/)


	15. Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And just like that, Cassian was alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _she was the most beautiful thing_   
>  _I had ever seen_   
>  _and it took only her laugh to realize_   
>  _that beauty was the least of her._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> \- atticus

“To your kind death,” Guli growled at him good naturedly, pouring him another shot of the bitter whiskey that his manager so loved. (His manager, hah, as if _La Brutalidad_ was only another hard-working, tax-paying company. As if the knife-wielding man pouring his whiskey was just another employee, rather than a thug who routinely cut out people’s organs in between working the bar.)

“And to yours,” Armande Salvor muttered and threw back the shot, felt the sting of it run up against the anti-inebriation tablet stuck to the roof of his mouth, leaving him with a mouthful of sour liquid that tasted like piss but wouldn’t get him drunk. He swallowed it down without expression and tapped his glass. It was expected that he would want more. Salvor was the highest ranking shadow man in Guli’s cell (correction: the highest ranking _associate_ in Guli’s _office_ , because this was just a business, of course. Of course.), and everyone knew that cold-blooded Salvor had ambitions. Salvor wanted to get promoted above even Guli, get pulled into the real bosses’ circle (no, no, _maldita_ , he wanted to get into _upper management_. Must not get sloppy with the terminology, not now, not after all this time).

Ambition required time, required effort, and most of all, required proof of loyalty. So Salvor drank Guli’s shitty whiskey and smiled thinly when his manager slid him a holo with a few data streams attached to it. The holo was a sour-faced Imperial officer standing with a vapid-looking woman labelled as his wife, and their three solemn children between the ages of four and nine. (In the corner of the bar, an old holodrama played, clonetroopers defending a gaggle of young students from monstrous, entirely non-human Jedi. The Jedi wanted to sacrifice the innocent children to their blood thirsty ancient gods of the Force. They screamed as the ‘troopers shot them down in barbaric, bloodthirsty waves.)

“Make it look like an accident, shadow man” Guli told him, and filled the shot glass again. “To your kind death,” he added absently as Salvor picked up the glass. The shadow man threw it back again, but the taste was wrong, it was not the cheap whiskey, it was too salty, too metallic. He lunged forward, spat the foul liquid out, stared at the bright red blood that splashed across the bar counter and dripped onto his lap. “Well done,” Guli laughed over the sound of the holodrama’s screams, “Looks like you’ll get that promotion, eh?”

He pointed behind Salvor, at the wrecked tram in the street, and Salvor realized a moment too late that the screams weren’t coming from the holodrama anymore, they were coming from the people crushed by the crumpled tram car. (A muscled, purple arm jutted out from the rubble, _this proves your worth_ , a deep voice rumbled, and he could not disagree.)

“Don’t worry,” Guli patted him on the shoulder and pointed at the holo again. “At least you can make it quick.”

Salvor looked back at the holo, but it was not the Imperial officer anymore. Jyn’s blue holographic face stared at him, eyes wide. “I don’t leave people behind,” she said.

“I do,” he told her, and watched her mouth twist with disgust like a knife twisting in his gut.

“To your kind death,” Guli repeated cheerfully, and Cassian crushed the holo under his fist.

Cassian woke up alone, huddled on the bunk in the small crew quarters. His parka was draped over his back and the normally cool air of the shuttle was unusually tepid. His body felt cold and numb anyway, his aching fingers clenched tightly in the thin sheet around a fading patch of heat. The jolting and warm air told him that the shuttle was already in atmosphere, and the distant clank of metal footsteps warned him that Kay was about to stomp his way into the little space. Cassian needed to get up. He needed to organize his mind for the upcoming debrief. He wanted to see if –

He needed to make sure his subordinates made it to the medical wing. Then he needed to get his head on straight and get back to work.

“We are on approach to Yavin IV,” Kay announced without preamble as he entered. “ETA in five minutes. The team is preparing for landing and egress.”

Cassian swallowed a few times to get his throat working, and scrubbed hard at his face. He felt like – not important. He was awake, alive, and functional. So, priorities. “Does anyone need to declare a medical emergency?”

“No,” Kay’s servos whirred a little louder for a moment, and then added, “Unless you feel the toxins in your system are not adequately purged?”

Cassian shook his head, a little gingerly. “No, I’m fine.” He held up one hand, noting that it no longer shook and that the red flush in his skin, a sign of cyanide blocking oxygen in his bloodstream, was already faded. He was too cold, the chill settled in his bones, but that probably didn’t have anything to do with the Lullaby. “I’ll be right out. Go prep for landing.”

“Cassian.” He glanced up to see Kay’s optics narrow slightly, focusing in on him and flickering the way they did when the droid scanned him for “physical assessment.” Cassian resisted the urge to fidget, or order Kay off. It was always easiest to just let his friend scan him, however uncomfortable it made him feel. He’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t, anyway. “You suffered a distressing episode earlier,” Kay said, his optics returning to their normal size and glow. “Have you recovered?”

Cassian pushed himself up from the bunk and rolled his parka under his arm. Bey must have already switched the cabin pressure controls into “atmosphere” mode, because the shuttle was significantly warmer and more humid than before. _Distressing episode_ , yes, he supposed that adequately described the way he’d latched on to Jyn and wept until the utter exhaustion of the past several months (the past several years) dragged him at last into unconsciousness. He could brush it off to Kay, but Kay rarely understood that kind of subterfuge, and would get increasingly more aggressive about “care and maintenance” until it drove Cassian up a wall. So instead, Cassian simply shrugged and combed a hand through his hair, hoping he didn’t look too…unstable. “I dealt with it, Kay.”

“Sergeant Liana Hallik was here,” Kay replied after a beat. His voice box was remarkably expressive for a droid of his make and model; Cassian would like to have taken credit for that, but it was purely luck and Kay’s own personality that made it so. At the moment, however, he sounded curiously flat, as if he were taking care to remove all inflection from his words.

“Jyn,” Cassian corrected softly, and winced a little. He shouldn’t call her that name, not now. She’d gifted it to him once, and he’d thrown it back in her face - and then lost her in a panicked crowd, pointed his rifle at her head, killed one of her recruits, broken his promise…

“Possibly,” Kay replied, still carefully emotionless. “Is that name still marked classified?”

Cassian opened his mouth, but the shuttle jolted hard, then the whine of the engines shut off. “Captain,” Bey’s voice buzzed in his comm, “We’re down. Pressure equalized, doors opening.”

“Let’s move, people,” another voice called through the thin door of the bunk room, and Cassian let his eyes close again, just for a moment. “Maddel, help Lorga down that jump,” Jyn ordered, sounding as cool and unruffled as if they’d just come back from grocery shopping rather than a chaotic Imperial occupation zone. “Sanduni, bring her blaster. You’ll need to check that in with supply. Yes, it’s hers now. I’ll get issued another. Lorga! Less snarl, more hustle. Medical wing is that way, and no one’s going to cart your hairy arse there.”

“Whatever her designation,” Kay remarked, “she is very bossy.”

“Pretty sure ‘bossy’ is on the requirement checklist for a sergeant’s badge,” Bey said, poking her head into the cabin and flashing a grin at Cassian. “Hey, Cassian. Glad to see you up.” He nodded, equal parts pleased and uncomfortable at the level of familiarity Shara Bey always showed him. They were not…friends. He wasn’t around enough for friends. Kay was as close to a social circle as he ever got. It was better that way. At the same time, Bey smiled whenever they met, insisted that they needed to “catch up,” and always called him Cassian.

“Hello, Bey,” he replied politely, trying to force the fatigue from his voice. “It is good to see you.”

She tilted her head at him, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, been awhile. Anyway, heads up, Draven’s waiting for you on the ramp. At least, I hope he’s here for you,” she muttered, shuddering slightly. “Pretty sure _I_ haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“Thank you.” He meant for more than the warning, and she seemed to understand.

“Sure thing, Cassian. And hey, if I’m still around when you finally get out of debrief, comm me. I’ve got some rum, we can catch up.” She shoved back a thick, curly lock of hair that had escaped her pilot’s knot and winked. “Jyn’s invited too. Maybe she’ll even tell me her full name.” She waggled her eyebrows playfully and turned back towards the cockpit.

 _She never told it to me_ , Cassian thought irrelevantly, then shook himself. Of course she didn’t. He hadn’t told her his name, either. That had been the point, hadn’t it?

She’d told him more than she should have already.

By the time Cassian dropped heavily down from the shuttle to the hangar floor with Kay clanking behind him, the three remaining recruits were already halfway across the cavernous space, leaning on each other and limping towards medical. Draven stood a few meters away, tall and imposing with his permanent scowl in place, glowering down at the comparatively (almost comically) small woman in front of him.

Jyn stood at parade rest, her head back, her shoulders stiff, and even though he couldn’t see her face, Cassian already knew that she was giving the general her hard-eyed, unblinking stare. Judging by the deepening lines around his mouth, Draven found that look to be just as uncomfortable as everyone else. But he was an old spy (a hard man in a hard world, alone with whatever dark deeds he had done in the name of the cause) and he did not flinch away or drop his eyes. Instead, he simply stared back. A passing pilot glanced between the two, shuddered, and stepped a little faster to get by. Neither sergeant nor general moved a muscle.

Cassian had the impression that if he didn’t interfere, they might be out here…awhile.

“Sir,” he said a touch louder than necessary as he walked up beside Jyn, studiously not looking at her. “Mission status is complete, partial success. I will have the report to you in one hour.”

A long moment passed with no response from either, and Cassian glanced sideways at Jyn to see her face was completely bland, though her eyes burned as she tracked Draven like she expected him to leap at her. Was there some history there? It did not seem likely, but then, what did he know about her? (She liked knives. She fought like a dancer and a wildfire rolled in one. She had a long scar on the left side her ribs, another across her lower back, and her knuckles were thick with callouses. She didn’t like the name Joreth, she could slice one of Kay’s best resetting electronic locks in under two minutes, and when she laughed, her eyes shone like a sunrise.)

Hardly anything at all.

He looked away, back to Draven.

The general’s jaw tightened, but at last he turned from Jyn (she shifted her weight slightly, pleased at winning whatever silent confrontation Cassian had interrupted) and said, “Make it four hours, Captain. I have other business, so get cleaned up and catch some sleep. You have a new operation, high priority. Relevant files will be forwarded to you.”

He still wasn’t looking at her (couldn’t look, shouldn’t look), but he felt when Jyn flinched beside him. The operation would center on her, and she knew it ( _Package Priority One_ , the coded message had said when he finally patched through to Command, _Liana Hallik, Threat Level Orchid, Return or Destroy_ , and a shard of ice had stabbed through his heart).

“You will need new quarters,” Draven continued without pausing. “See Quartermaster Nikeji for that. She’s fairly busy right now, though,” something in Draven’s voice was off, and Cassian felt his shoulders tense, slightly. “So you can surrender your Lullaby to me,” the general finished, just a little too nonchalantly.

Jyn was still, but even over the hangar noise, Cassian thought he heard her draw in a harsh breath.

“I cannot, sir,” Cassian said after a moment, and he repressed the shiver of cold that ran up his spine. He should tell his superior officer what happened, or at least give a plausible story, but there was ice forming in his mouth where the capsule had pressed against his tongue and teeth as he aimed for the pale spot right between Jyn's green eyes. 

Draven’s scowl, if possible, deepened. “Captain,” he said in a hard tone, “You are not authorized to maintain possession of Class Five gear on base, to include the Lullaby pill.” He stepped slightly closer, dropping his voice, and Cassian could almost swear there was a faint unease in his commander’s inscrutable eyes. “Don’t make me search you, Andor.”

“It was damaged,” Jyn said abruptly. Neither Cassian nor Draven jumped, but both men froze in place. “Firefight with ‘troopers. The captain left it behind.”

Draven glanced at her from the corner of his eye, then back to Cassian, who nodded slowly.

“Very well. Four hours, Captain,” Draven repeated as he turned on his heel and strode away. “And report to medical for those wounds, Sergeant,” he added over his shoulder, not quite looking back to meet Jyn’s gaze again. Neither of them responded, standing side by side and watching him go. Cassian kept his eyes fixed on Draven’s back, but all his attention centered on the soft silence that settled between his left shoulder and the woman who stood beside it.

“I have completed my analysis,” Kay said suddenly, startling them both.

“Analysis?” Cassian frowned, still carefully not turning his head. What analysis? _Joder_ , please don’t bring up the cyanide again. Not now. Just…not now.

“The sand of NiJedha,” Kay announced with all the gravity of a scientist reporting a major break through in the sentient understanding of the universe, “is three point seven percent more coarse than the sand of Tattooine. And I,” the droid slouched passed Cassian, forcing him to step slightly to the left (towards Jyn, who should have shied away but didn’t), “have approximately point seven kilograms of it in my joints. I require an oil bath.”

“Enjoy,” Jyn said dryly.

“I do not enjoy the oil bath,” Kay informed her primly. “But it is preferable to sand in my joints.”

He stamped away determinedly, forcing a mechanic and her astromech to swerve around him, the woman swearing and the little droid beeping indignantly.

“Charming guy,” Jyn murmured, and despite himself Cassian felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward in amusement.

“He tends to say whatever comes into his circuits,” he explained. “Byproduct of the reprogramming.”

“Or he’s just a grumpy _klootzak_ ,” Jyn shrugged as she watched the droid’s head towering above most of the hangar crowd, her lips curving into a small, soft smile that made Cassian’s fingers itch and his lungs tight in his chest. She glanced up at him, met his eyes, and the smile faded. “I’d better check on the recruits,” she said stiffly.

Right. The recruits. The three that were left, anyway. (The Lasat was on his knees, chains tight around his neck and turning his face grey, but the ‘troopers would keep him alive. They would keep him alive as long as they could, and he would tell them everything. Cassian raised his rifle, _breathe in, fire, breathe out,_ and he was every bit the cold-blooded shadow man _La Brutalidad_ had wanted him to be.)

“Get checked out yourself, Sergeant,” he replied in as even a voice as he could dredge up. It must have been enough to fool her, or she just didn’t care (but that was unlikely, because for all her hard stares and scars, Jyn hated to see suffering). She gave him a sharp nod, then spun on one heel and marched away without another word. He watched her go, her name frozen in his mouth, until she darted around an X Wing and vanished from sight.

And just like that, Cassian was alone again.

The bag he’d left in the long-term lockers was still there, and Cassian rifled through it absently as he waited his turn to get quarters assigned. Some tightly packed spare clothes, extra blaster, a couple specialized scopes, a small pouch of basic toiletries, and a datapad loaded with a few recreational reading materials. The sum of his material possessions, he thought wearily, in one duffel. It took roughly forty minutes for quartermaster Nikeji to assign him new rooms (though when he gave his best ‘humble and tired officer’ smile, she winked and pushed his name a little higher on her datapad list). The wait turned out to be worth it, because he was lucky enough to get one of the nicer rooms in the upper quarters, as far from the perpetual noise of the hangar as he could be. These rooms were often given to officers with spouses or even children, so it was slightly more spacious than most, and had a bed that was almost five centimeters wider than the standard pop-out bunks. It had a fold-down desk bolted into the wall, both lightbulbs in the ceiling fixture worked when he flicked the switch, and it even had a water-shower in it, a real luxury.

Or maybe it wasn't luck. Perhaps this was supposed to be some sort of reward, or consolation perhaps, for lasting so long on a previously unsurvivable mission. He dropped his bag on the desk and threw his parka into the small sonic laundry box. Before he could peel off the rest of his admittedly disgusting clothes and throw them in after it, someone knocked on the door. He debated ignoring it, then duty got the better of him (it always did, no matter what price it demanded; duty called and Cassian raised his rifle) and opened it to find a stocky man with short dark hair and a big grin.

“Hey, Andor, heard you were back!” Kes Dameron leaned against his doorframe and peered over his shoulder into the small room. “Wow, they really set you up with the penthouse, no?”

“Hello, Dameron,” Cassian said slowly. It had been awhile since he’d interacted…chatted… _mierda_ , he sounded like an idiot. Since he’d made small talk with…acquaintances. “How are you?”

Dameron raised an eyebrow, his smile turning sardonic. “Yeah, Shara said you were being extra formal today,” he chuckled. “Long mission?”

“Yes,” Cassian replied, and then stalled. He didn’t know what Dameron wanted him to say, didn’t know how to mold his face into whatever expression would satisfy the other man, and there was no goal to achieve in this conversation. If he were less tired, he might be able to come up with something, but as it was, he just shrugged and waited for Dameron to take the lead.

“Right,” the other man fidgeted, tapping one hand against his leg distractedly. “Apparently, _really_ long. Look, I know you’re probably headed to debrief - ” he paused, wrinkled his nose, “hopefully _after_ a shower, no offense. But if you’ve got time this evening, comm us, okay? It’s been awhile.”

“Sure.”

Dameron gave him what he thought was a hard look, but Cassian had been living in a criminal hell for months and then in a war zone for a week (with one sweet day in between as a breather, in a crystal-covered city with a woman who tucked herself under his arm like she belonged there, one warm night where he’d felt like a normal person living something like life), so Dameron’s glare simply bounced off him.

“Okay, well, if I don’t answer my comm right away, we’re in the room just down the hall.” Dameron pointed lazily to the right, and Cassian added “close to my only known associates” to his list of suspicious reasons for his nice accommodations.

Draven demanding that he hand over his Lullaby. A quiet room near the only people he ever really interacted with on base. A friendly visitor within minutes of his arrival in his quarters – and he had a feeling that Dameron would be back in an hour, and possibly every hour after that until he went off shift.

He really should have cottoned on to it sooner; after all, Cassian knew what suicide watch looked like. It had been awhile, though, and he was…distracted.

“Thanks, Dameron,” Cassian said quietly, because he wasn’t grateful at the moment but he probably would be, later. Eventually.

“Right, get that shower, and I’ll swing by in a bit. Just to, you know,” Dameron scratched absently at his jawline and gave Cassian a significant look, “say hi.”

It was almost amusing, that Command would assign someone as unsubtle as Dameron as his monitor. But then, he would have been significantly more suspicious of someone he couldn’t read so easily. “See you in an hour, then,” Cassian replied easily, and shut the door before Dameron could finish sighing.

The timer on the shower was auto-set for ten minutes, but it only took Cassian about three to scrub himself down. He turned it as hot as it would go and stood for a few seconds just letting the water run down his neck and back. But the sensation reminded him too much of phantom hands dragging down his spine, and he didn’t have the energy to deal with that thought right now. He dried off quickly, looked in the small mirror bolted to the wall over the toilet just long enough to trim his ragged beard back to something a little more professional (but not all the way smooth, not since the Willix operation, never again if he could help it. Randomly, he remembered the Klatooinian thugs on Jedha; _Imps like their boys shaved_ , and then the big one had eyed Jyn like she was a treat he wanted to sink his rotting teeth into. Cassian had killed him without thinking about it. He still wasn’t thinking about it.)

Cassian met his own eyes in the mirror and grimaced.

He cleaned and stowed the razor, pulled his now-clean clothes from the sonic laundry, and draped his parka over the bed while he dug his officer’s jacket and captain’s badge from the bag. It wasn’t much of a uniform, but as he pinned the rank to his chest and settled his jacket around his shoulders, he felt the last wisps of Joreth Sward falling away. Armande Salvor still clung to his skin like a thin film of grease, but he’d been ignoring it for days, he could carry on a while longer. Instead, he pulled out the datapad and hooked it into the secured port on the wall by the fold out desk (no chair, but the desk was close enough and the cable long enough that he could perch on the edge of the bed and still use the datapad).

There were multiple files in his account, a few personal messages from Shara Bey and Kes Dameron, and one or two short messages from some of his colleagues in the Intelligence Department – none of them had known where he was or how long he’d be gone, so the messages largely amounted to “haven’t seen you in awhile, hope you’re okay, send me a message when you’re back.” He deleted most of those, although he kept the one where Shara Bey told him she was considering having a child. Good data, it would be something to talk about when he saw her again.

The last two files were from Draven, unlabeled and locked in secondary encryption. Cassian entered his passkey for the first, and a relatively small file titled “Galen Erso” popped up. The file was clearly from Alliance analysts, but the intel had hallmarks of Coruscanti data trails. At least some of it must have come from his data dump, from _La Brutalidad_. Cassian grit his teeth and ignored the ridiculous impulse to throw the datapad aside. Instead, he skimmed through the file. Imperial scientist, accolades and good grades in various prestigious schools, worked for an energy company under the Old Republic, widower – nothing of particular interest until near the end of the file, when he saw “publicly recorded death in Lothal Year 3262” followed by a note from Analysis: “confirmed alive in LY 3276.” Someone had marked Galen Erso as dead in the Imperial records, complete with signed death certificate dated fourteen years ago. The documents that revealed the deception (data taken from _La Brutalidad_ , he would _not_ be sick) also linked Galen Erso to some massive weapons program that had all the data crunchers very nervous, and also…to shipments of Kyber crystal?

Was the invasion of Jedha City linked to this weapons project? No wonder Draven had wanted him to read all this as soon as possible. It was a tangled web, but already he could see patterns branching from Erso to Jedha to someone with enough clout in the Imperial military to get a high-profile scientist erased from the system.

There wasn’t much more in the file, but the second file looked significantly bigger, so perhaps he would find a better place to start there. He tapped in the key, watched the code dissolve into coherent words, and then the file opened to -

 _Jyn Erso_.

She stared at him from the datapad, her mouth grim and her eyes defiant. The picture was about a year old, updated when she’d put on a sergeant’s badge, but aside from slightly longer hair, she looked exactly like she had when she’d walked away in the hangar barely two hours ago.

Cassian took a deep breath, and read.

Born in a Separatist prison on Vallt ( _ice planet_ , he thought, and remembered the way the winds of Fest had wormed into his clothes and iced over his hair as a child). She hadn’t known why they were imprisoned, only that her mother had been alone in the camp when her father had been in the factories of a nearby weapon’s manufacturer (someone, probably Draven, had marked this statement with _potential sympathies for Old Republic)._

Brought to Coruscant for the first four years of her life by a ‘man in white.’ Then she and her parents had left for Lah’mu, to live…on a farm? Jyn had given no coherent reason for this either, saying only that they left in a hurry, and she didn’t know why. When pressed, the interviewer noted that she simply shut down, and did not speak again until the subject was changed ( _suspicious refusal to discuss parents_ , the note read). Another four years on Lah’mu (eight years old, only a little older than he had been, on Carida when – not important right now). But the man in white had returned, with a full entourage of deathtroopers. Galen Erso had sent his wife and child to hide in the hills, but for some reason ( _subject became agitated upon detailed questioning_ ) Lyra Erso had gone back, and all Jyn had said was “she died, they all left, and then Saw came and got me out of the cave.”

The cave. (The lights of the Infinite are beautiful, silent and sweet and as unconcerned with the small sentient lives that pass through them as the real stars outside. Beside him, the woman’s hand snags suddenly on his coat, and when he reaches carefully to check on her, she slides under his arm and presses against him as if she’s meant to be there, as if she’s coming home. She’s shaking slightly in the dark, but even now she’s warm, a wildfire subdued in the face of the infinite dark but not smothered by it.)

There were several blurry holos and notes collected painstakingly from various sources within the Alliance over the years that confirmed sightings of a young human fem, dark hair, green eyes, fierce expression, following the Lion of Onderon for the next eight years. There were even meetings between the Partisan leader and Bail Organa – the accompanying holos showed both men with a young girl standing at their respective sides (Princess Leia Organa, and Jyn Erso, Cassian thought with a small jolt. They’d _met_.), and he was even a little shocked to see that on at least one occasion…well, the dates matched up. He hadn’t been in the Command center, but he’d been on base.

(Had he seen her? Perhaps. No. It didn’t matter.)

He shook his head and refocused.

There was a year-long gap between the last time “Saw’s protégé” had been holo’d with the old war horse and the time she’d been picked up by an Alliance recruiter. Jyn said only that she and Saw had “parted,” and then admitted her full name. He wondered at that for a moment; her father was an Imperial collaborator, and she’d given the Alliance her real name? But then he flipped further in the file, and found the medical exam taken when she was first brought in.

_Severe malnutrition…atrophy of the muscles…hypoglycemia, which triggered the starvation response…potential mild hallucinations…multiple hairline fractures in her skeletal system, unable to fully heal due to hormonal imbalance…_

( _She saw me fight some thugs, offered me a meal,_ Jyn said quietly in his ear, curled up against him with her arms around his neck. Her breath was warm on his skin, soothing as he stroked his hand up and down her leg and let himself relax against her.)

After the medical exam, it was just a long list of operations she’d completed, most of them successful, few with any specific causality reports. She’d been used as a scout, saboteur, slicer, and occasionally an “acquisitions agent.”

No consistent team operations, no partners, no official unit assignment. _Distrust of authority figures_ , her psych evals noted. _Too independent to work within standard command structure_ , one instructor wrote carefully in her performance quarterly. Another was less kind, writing only _does not play well with others_. The last time she’d gone out with a Pathfinder unit, the commanding officer had come back with two men alive who ought to be dead, glowing praise for her ability to survive a bad situation gone even worse, and an earnest request that she be reassigned to another unit.

( _The droid can be a useful companion for Ensign Andor_ , Mothma had told Draven in her measured tone, immune to his dark scowl as Cassian stood as straight as he could. His work didn’t allow for many _companions_ , but a droid, surely a droid would be acceptable? Draven had nodded reluctantly, Mothma had signed the documents with a small smile, and from then on, Cassian had been a little less alone.)

Dameron checked in on him twice more before he got up and made his way to the CIC. It was surprisingly empty at the moment, and for some reason, someone had set a chair at the central conference console, which was currently turned off and locked. Cassian glanced at the chair with an internal frown, but Draven and Mothma were both already there, as well as…Bail Organa? That was a mild surprise, but Cassian tucked it away as Draven waved him over. “Your report can wait, Andor,” Draven greeted him. “I understand you got all the recruits out anyway?”

“All but one,” Cassian hesitated, then looked at the wall behind Draven’s head. “The Lasat was captured by the Imperials as we escaped.”

“Do you know where he was taken?” Organa frowned in concern.

Cassian did not look away from the wall. “I neutralized him, sir,” he said baldly. “The Imperials clearly meant to interrogate him, and I had a priority package to protect.” Organa shifted his weight, but neither Mothma nor Draven moved.

“Then it was the correct choice, Captain,” Draven glanced up briefly then back to the datapad. “And a kinder death than he would have faced otherwise.”

( _To your kind death_ , Guli grinned at him, and he threw the shot back.)

“Read the files?” Draven was still flipping through his datapad, frowning at what he read.

“Yes, sir,” Cassian folded his arms and leaned against a nearby console, since this was clearly not a formal debrief. “I assume my objective is to track down Galen Erso’s current project?”

“Preferably, you would track down Galen Erso first, Captain,” Mothma replied serenely. “He could be a wellspring of information for us, as well as,” she glanced aside to Organa, who inclined his head, “other uses,” she finished gracefully.

That set off a few alarm bells in Cassian’s head, but he set it aside, because Draven was turning towards the far side of the room. “Bring her in,” he called to the Private standing guard, and Cassian had only a moment to realize what was about to happen before the door opened and two security guards marched her through.

She’d showered and changed into a faded blue shirt, with only her sleeveless brown mechanic’s jacket thrown over it. Her sergeant’s badge was clipped to her belt, and she’d found a replacement truncheon on her right hip, but not for her left. No blaster, and her sleeves were rolled up to show bare forearms. Possibly still a knife in her right boot, and of course the katar was probably tucked into the little hidden pocket in her… ( _Apex?_ she smirked at him, dragging her fingers around his bare hips and down, trailing fire on his skin and making his heart race, _Inguinal region? Honey pot?_ and he hadn’t laughed like that in years, in decades, maybe never, but it spilled so easily from his lips at that moment and he’d dropped to his knees before her) …the hidden pocket in her trousers.

The guards led her to the chair, and she sat in it without comment, her eyes wary and her chin set stubbornly. Draven moved forward to stand across from her at the console, looking even taller and more threatening in the greenish light of data screens and starmaps. Her eyes flicked over him, unimpressed; she turned to Mothma as the Senator glided forward, and then Jyn was looking right at Cassian.

(He’d half expected her to bolt through the crowds, but the rowdy group of Britarro party-goers had forced her back towards him, and instead she’d drawn a knife and gotten right into his face. Her fierce green eyes had shone with the reflection of the first real sunlight he’d seen in months, and he’d felt her heat already pressing in against him. A knife point to his heart and a question in her eyes, and he had been so long in the shadows that he had forgotten what beauty could be found in the light.)

“Possession of unsanctioned weapons,” Draven said heavily, and Jyn’s eyes snapped back to him, just as guarded as in Cassian’s memories, but not nearly as bright. The general appeared to be reading from a datapad, walking slowly around the table towards Jyn (standard intimidation tactic, Cassian thought; the odds that Draven had been the one to write in all the "suspicious" comments in Jyn’s file just went up). “Forging of Imperial documents. Aggravated assault.” Draven glanced up pointedly. “Resisting arrest. And those are just the charges on your most recent wanted bulletin. Imagine what it might say if the Empire had guessed who you really were,” he paused, tossed the datapad to the console surface, and perched himself nonchalantly on the edge. “Sergeant Jyn Erso,” he drawled, dragging out the syllables deliberately and watching her like a hawk.

She didn’t flinch, but her eyes flicked for the barest moment from Draven to Mothma to Cassian, then away again _. It’s my fault_ , Cassian wanted to tell her. _I gave them the data that proved your father was alive. Now they’re worried you’ve been lying this whole time._

( _There is a significant possibility_ , Kay told him, as Cassian numbly brushed sand from his friend’s chassis and tried to process Command’s orders, _that she has been presenting a false front to you. Would you like to know the odds that her name is not, in fact, Jyn?_ )

“Daughter of Galen Erso,” Draven concluded, and Jyn’s mouth tightened.

She turned to Mothma, all sharp angles and wary eyes. “What is this?”

“We think you might be able to help us,” Mothma said gently (an outstretched hand in contrast to Draven’s threatening fist. Good Warden, Bad Warden executed flawlessly. The Senator did not like interrogation games, but she knew how to play them nonetheless). Mothma turned and gestured to Cassian, and he forced his muscles to unfreeze, stepping from the shadows of the corner to the dim half-light of the conference console. “You have met Captain Cassian Andor, Rebel Intelligence, I understand,” Mothma continued. “He has been assigned to deal with this difficult and delicate matter.”

She was staring at him again, as wary and dangerous as when they had met, except this time the knife she held to his heart was invisible, and infinitely more deadly to him. In the back of his mind, Cassian cursed Mothma, just a little, for setting him up like this, for making _him_ be the one to explain to Jyn. But he had a duty, so Cassian unlocked his jaw, folded his hands behind his back, and forced the words up through his frozen throat. “When was the list time you were in contact with your father?”

She flinched, and Cassian locked his cold fingers together so hard they ached. “Fourteen years ago,” she said, looking him right in the eye and tilting her chin up in that little challenging way of hers ( _So where are we going?_ she asked in a low voice, her head cocked to the side and the faint trace of a smile on the corner of her mouth, and he had only let go of her a moment ago but already he felt the loss of her warmth against his body, against his lips.)

Cassian stepped closer, realized a moment too late that he was looming over her, just as grim and intimidating as Draven. “Do you have any idea where he’s been since then?”

She held his gaze, proud and defiant (he wanted to step back, wanted to hold out his hand, wanted to let her see that he wasn’t her enemy, but all he could do was stand over her and wait for the fire in her eyes to burn with hatred). “I like to think he’s dead,” she told him flatly, and then to his surprise, she looked down at her hands, her voice faltering. “Makes things easier,” she added softly.

(He couldn’t do this.)

(But he had a duty.)

Cassian grabbed the edge of the console, and slowly lowered himself to one knee. He heard Mothma’s robes flutter with her surprised movement, felt Draven’s eyes bore into his back, but all his focus was on Jyn, who jerked her head up to stare at him.

Cassian kept his voice gentle, feeling his way through what was probably an emotional minefield for Jyn ( _he left me_ , she whispered against his skin, _because I wasn’t useful anymore_ , and in her quiet voice he’d heard the echo of a little girl weeping. Saw Gerrera had abandoned her in the dark. Her father, according to the file, had done the same.)  “Because he’s a tool in the Imperial war machine?”

“Because he left,” she said quietly, and he knew that this was not something she would have said to anyone else. It was a gift, an acknowledgement that she had trusted him once, that she trusted him enough yet to give him this. He would have to be a bastard, _hijo de puta_ , completely heartless, to exploit that for his objective (He was. He always had been. This was why Draven did not assign him a partner, why Mothma never pushed for him to work with others despite her obvious concerns).

“What about Saw Gerrera?” Cassian kept his voice steady and his eyes on Jyn’s, watching for the moment she realized exactly what he was, exactly what he was willing to do. Watching for the knife in his heart. “If we asked him, would he know how to contact Galen Erso?”

“It’s been years since we spoke,” she snapped, “I didn’t even know where he was until…” She flinched again, rubbing at her wrists unthinkingly. (He sighted through his scope, watching the Tognath half-drag her by the collar, her hands bound so tightly he could see her fingers turning faintly blue. She stumbled; the robed human behind her raised a hand to strike her across the back of her head, but Cassian shot him first.)

“He remembers you, though, doesn’t he?” Cassian leaned closer, not caring what it looked like to their audience (he could explain it later, rapport-based interrogation techniques were his best tool. Draven would buy it and Mothma might understand), “His people knew your face. Sanduni said they called you Saw’s child,” (her eyes were bright again, but not with sunlight, and Cassian was a bastard for doing this but it was too late to stop) “So he might talk to you, if you came as a friend.”

She just looked at him, and the fire that burned in her eyes was banked now under the weight of a grief he was deliberately digging up and throwing in her face. (She curled around him and showed him a brief glimpse of the cracks in her heart, kissed his throat and smiled like sunrise, and he hauled her into Command and pried those cracks open for the world to see, and any second now he was going to see her recognize that).

“Clock’s running, Sergeant,” Draven growled from the shadows behind Cassian. “If there’s nothing to talk about, then you can return to the scout corps and stop wasting the captain’s time.”

“I was a child,” she blurted, still staring at Cassian. “Saw Gerrera saved my life. He raised me. But he - ” she choked off, closing her eyes ( _he left me in a bunker on Tamsye Prime_ ). “I don’t know what he would do,” she finished, taking a deep breath and looking at him again. “I don’t know.”

“We can’t reach him right now, anyway,” Cassian reassured her quickly, “Not with Jedha still mostly locked down. But any lead you have, Jyn,” (and her name on his tongue was a weapon, he saw it strike home in her flinch and Cassian was a _bastard_ ), “Galen Erso is working on something big, a weapons program that our people think might change everything, and I need anything you can give.”

Jyn tilted her head towards him, looking at him through her eyelashes. “And if I do?” It was barely more than a whisper, but it chilled his blood and left him silent, staring at her, not sure what she was asking, not sure how to answer. The fire burned in her eyes again, but he couldn’t read it now any more than he could the first time he saw her, fierce and bright and dangerous.

“We will, of course, be grateful for your assistance, Sergeant Erso,” Mothma interjected smoothly, and Cassian felt his jaw clench reflexively before he caught himself and tucked the reaction away.

Jyn swallowed, and her face went blank as well. “Yes, ma’am,” she said as empty and professional as any soldier accepting orders. “Of course.”

“I appreciate your cooperation,” Mothma smiled graciously. “For the duration of this operation, you will be assigned as Captain Andor’s partner. You will have access to whatever files he does.”

Draven blinked and looked up at Mothma, his lips thinning into a hard line. Cassian felt a flash of surprise himself – never mind the sudden upgrade to Jyn’s clearance, _partner?_

(She pulled him away from her shoulder, warm hands in his hair and on his cold neck, and tilted her chin. He had just confessed to the murder of children, and he was ready for her judgment, ready for her disgust. _I’m glad you made it out, Cassian,_ she whispered instead, and when she kissed him he almost felt forgivable. But that was before he tried to kill her. That was before he shot her recruit instead, and dragged all her painful secrets into the critical eyes of strangers.)

“Dismissed, Sergeant,” Draven said shortly, and Jyn was out of the chair and out of the room before Cassian could fully heave himself to his feet.

“Well done, Andor,” the general leaned heavily against the console, picking up his datapad and skimming it with mild disinterest. “I understand that it’s not the ideal set up, but if you can keep her close for awhile, maybe she’ll lead you to something worthwhile.”

(Draven had no idea, and that knowledge filtered in and chilled Cassian's veins. He’d never had a weakness like Jyn, had no idea how to conceal it, and hadn’t particularly been trying. How had Draven missed it? He’d hurt her, ripped pieces of his own heart off to hurt her as publicly as possible, and Draven had watched him do it. How could anyone not know?)

(He loved her, and he hurt her. _Cold-blooded shadow man_ , he thought.)

Cassian hunted for a response, but before he could think of anything safe enough to say out loud, a new voice thundered through the room. “Draven!” A green-skinned Twi’lek marched into the room, eyes narrow and teeth bared in a snarl. “What is this nonsense? I left for a _month_ and you poached one of my best scouts?”

“You have others,” Draven waved a hand dismissively. “My division needed her expertise - ”

“Damnit, Davits, _every_ division needs people, you cannot just - ”

“Generals, please,” Mothma interrupted, and Cassian slipped out the door.

Dameron was standing by his door, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall. “Oh good, there you are,” he saluted Cassian lazily, a little flick of his fingers. “I was about to start tracking your comm down.”

“You should be off shift by now,” Cassian keyed in his passcode.

“I am off shift,” Dameron grinned, pretending to misinterpret Cassian’s comment. “I’m just a bit restless tonight. And Shara’s not off shift for another couple hours. I can stick around, if you want to catch up.”

That was the last thing he needed right now, to have to force himself to be pleasant around someone else, to make small talk (to lie about where he’d been, what he’d done), to be social. He just didn’t have it in him right now. “No thank you,” Cassian said as politely as he could. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Alright,” Dameron gave him another long look, and Cassian stared at the open door and let him. “Well, if you need anything, just buzz my comm. I’ll come by again in a bit, yes? And, uh, Cassian, I should probably just tell you - ” Dameron’s shoulders hunched up uncomfortably, and he shifted his weight.

“You have my room passcode,” Cassian supplied coolly. “You are required to get visual confirmation that I am still alive every hour. If you believe me to be at risk, you are required to summon medical personnel.”

Dameron’s mouth dropped open, then he snapped it shut and nodded tightly. “Yeah. Guess there’s no point trying to pretend.”

“Good night, Dameron,” Cassian said, and went inside. It was cold inside, he’d left the air recycler up too high. He shivered and considered turning it down – but then, he’d been cold from the moment he woke up alone, what difference did it make now?

“Shara’s schedule changed, so she’ll still be here in the morning,” Dameron called in after him. He rapped a knuckle sharply on the doorframe. “So you’d better plan to have breakfast with us, okay?”

Cassian nodded. “Alright.”

“I mean it,” Dameron leaned in and waited until Cassian met his eye. “Breakfast, Andor. You’re going to be there.”

“I will,” Cassian said (he wasn’t at risk, not tonight, not right now. Galen Erso was somewhere in the galaxy inventing weapons that would potentially let the Empire crush the last spark of hope from the galaxy. Jyn Erso’s eyes had burned with the desperate need of a grieving daughter. Cassian wasn’t going anywhere, not just yet).

“Shara said that Jyn was invited too," Dameron made a face, "Whoever that is. So, Jyn is invited, alright?"

Cassian swallowed. "Good night," he said again.

"See you soon, then,” Dameron slapped the doorframe and reluctantly stepped back, hitting the door latch behind him to force it closed.

Cassian pulled out his datapad and opened a blank report document. Draven hadn’t seemed much concerned with the Jedhan recruit mission. No real reason, Cassian supposed – the invasion had gone like any other, nothing new to be learned there, and Draven wasn’t in the recruiting pipeline. All the same, he could write it up, make sure his (surviving) recruits were given the respect they were due. Make sure Jyn got the commendation she deserved for keeping them all alive and moving. At the very least, Jak Inkari’s story deserved to be told. So did the story of the Guardians, and all that they had lost. There was a lot that Command needed to know about what had happened in that city after the Destroyer came down.

Of course, some things he would have to keep to himself.

Someone knocked at his door. Cassian closed his eyes and sighed. Probably Dameron again, although it might potentially be a message runner from Draven. The general did not like to use the comm systems, preferring either text notifications or to send runners. Neither prospect appealed to Cassian right now.

But when had anything he did ever really appealed to him? (A week ago, in a back alley of a strange city, when he’d reached out and a woman with a wildfire in her eyes had reached back.)

Cassian tossed the datapad on the desk and opened the door.

“Do you hate me for my father?”

He blinked, certain his mind was playing tricks on him. Jyn stood in the hallway outside his door, her arms crossed and her face tight. Her words registered a beat late (what? Why would he hate her for something so beyond her control? Why would she even think that he - ah. Cold-blooded shadow man, calmly watching a tram derail. Hard-eyed interrogator exposing her life for the world to see. Of course she thought he hated her). Cassian shook his head. “No.” He gripped the doorframe, off balance, uncertain, hands numb with cold, and just so damn tired. “Never.”

She frowned down at her boots, biting her lip. Down the hall, voices chattered pleasantly at one another as a group of people came up the nearby stairwell, and the sound jerked Cassian out of his stunned haze. He stepped back, leaving the door open as he turned and walked slowly back to his bunk. He half expected her to be gone by the time he sat down, but she followed him in, at least as far as the door. He almost smiled to see her standing there by his door while he sat nearby and tried not to show how badly he wanted her to stay. (He looked up and saw her scanning him from the hotel room door, taking in his plain traveler’s clothes, his rough stubble, his low slung holster, and he’d known she was sizing him up, looking for the trap, half-convinced that all of this was too good to be true, too easy to be true. He knew, because he felt exactly the same way. And then she’d met his eyes, and he’d seen the resolution forming there – and the heat.)

(But that was before.)

She recognized the similarities in their positions at the same time he did, and with a little grunt, she slapped his door closed and strode towards him (his heartrate spiked, but he was not going to think about – no. This was different. Everything was different.)

“Does it bother you?” She demanded, stopping just shy of touching his knees, but instead of reaching for his cheek, she folded her arms again and glared. Looming over him, grim and distant, he realized. His turn to be interrogated. “Being forced to work with me?”

“No,” he tilted his head back, and then because he was damned either way, he decided to tell the whole truth. “I'm not being forced. And if you don't want to work with me, I can tell Draven to let you go back to what you did before.”

It was her turn to blink in surprise, and her lips parted slightly as she processed that (what he wouldn’t give to reach out again. He balled his fists in his lap and held perfectly still).

“Alright,” she said at last. “So long as – alright.”

“We’ll find your father, Jyn,” he told her with all the conviction he had in him. He couldn’t promise that she would be happy it about when they found him, or that her father would be safe, or anything else. But he could do _this_ , at least. He could help her _understand_. "We'll find out where the Empire sent him, and why he stayed."

Jyn drew in a great breath, held it a moment with her eyes closed, then nodded, and breathed out. “Thank you,” she said softly. The air between them seemed to thicken and settle, and Cassian’s nails were digging into his palms but he didn’t dare unclench his fists.

“I’ll…” Jyn stepped back, turned toward the door. “I’ll see you later, Cassian.”

His name on her tongue was a powerful thing (but he’d known that from the beginning, before he’d even dared to give it to her), and it shook lose the ice in his throat.

“Do you hate me for killing Inkari?”

She stopped, turned back to face him. “No,” she said. “Never.”

(She kissed him like a wild thing, all hot breath and teeth on his lip and nails digging into his scalp, and he bent her backwards and returned the favor. For just a moment, he could drop all his pretenses, all the lies, and just bury himself in the heat of her. When she finally pulled away, he looked her in the eye and confessed, _I feel like I know you_ , and she nodded solemnly. _That’s crazy._ It was _._ He didn’t care.)

“Good,” he whispered, because there was nothing else to say.

Jyn bit her lip, still staring at him, then slid her hand down to her belt, then lower – _joder! what was she?_ \- and with a flick of her clever fingers, the little katar appeared in her hand. Before Cassian could react, she leaned down, grabbed his wrist, and set the blade in his palm. ( _Me too,_ she smiled, and maybe this _was_ insanity but he’d never felt more sane.)

“For the scarf,” Jyn said quietly, and belatedly he realized that he recognized the dark blue cloth around her neck. She’d turned it inside out so the stars were hidden against her throat, but it was definitely the one he’d given her on the night of the festival; he’d tossed it so casually, like it was just a scarf and not his heart wrapped up in soft, starry cloth.  Like his knuckles didn’t still burn where she’d pressed her lips after wrapping his fingers around this same knife. “Cassian,” she said abruptly, pulling his attention from the katar to her face again. “Tell me what you want,” she said, a touch harshly, glaring a little as she forced the words out.

 “I want…” he shook his head. This was the problem with honesty, he thought distantly. Once the line was crossed, it was hard to go back. But Jyn watched him like she half expected him to strike her, and he couldn’t stand the anticipation of pain in her eyes. “This operation,” he tried again, but that wasn’t right either. “Are you…okay? Staying with me?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never been cleared for a team,” she bit out. “I’m too suspicious. I don’t coordinate, I don’t synch well, I don’t,” her mouth twisted into a bitter smile, “play well with others.”

“You worked fine with me,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but you were - ” she made a vague gesture with one hand, looking down and away from him. “I don’t know. It was different. I’m no good at this, Cassian. I don’t…I don’t know if I can help.”

The shame in her voice drove him to his feet, and he stepped close. “No,” he said urgently. “You are good at it. If you’re willing to trust me,” his throat iced over again for a moment, and he swallowed hard to continue. “If you will, just a little, then we can work just fine. We’ll find your father, find this weapon program. It will be alright, Jyn. And I didn’t ask you to stay just for this op - ” his brain caught up to his mouth, and he snapped his jaw shut.

But it was too late. She looked up (too close, he was too close, he needed to step back). “What then? What do you _want_?”

( _Stay with me_ , but he couldn’t say it, the ice was too thick and he couldn’t say it.)

“Cassian,” Jyn said, studying his face. “Can I…check something? It’s important.”

Bewildered, he nodded, his fingers still tight around the handle of the katar.

Jyn’s hand was warm on his neck, but not as warm as her mouth when she stood on her toes and pressed it gently to his.

He was frozen, cold to the touch and unable to move. Jyn pulled away, her hand still scorching his neck but her lips turning down with disappointment and hurt (he loved her and he hurt her, _again_ ) and the fire dimming in her eyes hit him like a blowtorch, like a firebomb going off in his head. Cassian dropped the katar and surged forward, throwing his arms around her waist and hauling her back up against him. She inhaled sharply as he sought her mouth again, hungry and aching for the contact, desperate to show her exactly what he thought of her impulsive action. She was pliant and uncertain for a moment, and then he felt her smile against his lips (a real smile, so bright he could taste the sunlight on his tongue) and then her breath was curling into him and fracturing the ice in his blood. Her arms were around his neck now, her weight against his chest, the heat of her spreading through him and turning him from ice to fire.

He wrapped one arm tight around her waist to balance her, used the other hand to tug her hair free and bury his fingers in it. She laughed softly against his mouth, and the sound went straight through his chest and shattered the last little spike of cold fear that told him he was reading this all wrong. Her warmth filtered through him, hot tea on a cold night, unfurling in his throat and his chest and then (when she rolled her hips against him and gasped against his lips) lower yet.

“Jyn,” he murmured, and she turned her head and kissed his cheek, his jaw, his ear. He swallowed the groan when her tongue traced a line of heat over his racing pulse, “Jyn, what about you? What do you, ah," (she slipped her hand under his jacket collar and dug her fingers into the base of his neck, sending a bolt of liquid fire down his spine and straight to his groin), "what do _you_ want?”

She paused, and Cassian took advantage of her stillness to tug aside her scarf – the swirling stars that had caught his eye on the vendor’s stall were visible now, bright against the dark fabric – and kissed the curve of her throat, the smooth line of her shoulder. She smelled faintly like salt and blaster oil and tasted just a touch like the red tea she’d shared with him in Jedha.

“This,” she breathed into his ear. Jyn pulled back suddenly, dragging her hands from his hair to his neck to his shoulders, and latching on to his collar. “You,” she continued quietly, and though her voice shook a little her gaze was steady on his. (She was so damn brave, he thought, that it scared the hell out of him sometimes.)

And then she laughed, bright and soft and glowing like a sunrise. “ _Everything_ ,” she promised (and she might break his heart, but oh, it would be worth it, for that laugh, _it would be worth it_ ).

Cassian untangled his hand from her hair and cupped his palm around her cheek, tracing his thumb across that smile and feeling her skin warm his cold fingers. “Jyn,” he murmured her name (her real name, which she’d given him like a secret, like a promise, when he had no reason to expect it and no right to ask it of her), and leaned down to kiss her again, because he didn’t really know what _everything_ meant, yet, but he was more than willing to find out.

Someone rapped on the door. Jyn jumped in his arms and pulled away slightly, and he bit back a snarl. “Hey, Cassian,” Dameron’s voice filtered in. “Checking in. Open up, alright?”

Cassian glared at the door and reluctantly loosened his grip. Jyn cocked her head at him, a little wrinkle forming between her brows. “Checking in?” she asked softly. Her hands were suddenly gentle on his shoulders, rubbing in small circles, and he realized that his jaw had gone tight and his shoulders rigid.

 “Every hour,” he explained cautiously, trying to force himself to drop his shoulders and relax his face. “He is my…” (my minder, my babysitter, because I’m a fucking _flight_ _risk_ , and everyone thinks I’m going to off myself before the fight is done, before I’ve kept the only promise to you that I haven’t broken) “…a friend,” he finished lamely.

But Jyn was smarter than that, and her eyes narrowed. “He’s your watcher,” she said slowly, her hands still kneading against the tense muscles of his shoulders.

“Okay, I’m coming in,” Dameron called, and the faint sound of beeping keys filtered through the door.

Cassian dropped his hands and stepped back as the door slid open –

\- and Jyn yanked at his shoulders hard enough to make him stumble forward, rising up on her toes and pressing a hard kiss to his mouth just as the light from the hall hit them both.

“Hey Cass - ” Dameron cut off with a small yelp, and all Cassian could do was stand there and stare at her as she dropped back to her heels and turned calmly to look at the intruder. She didn’t move away, though, so her back was still brushing lightly against his chest.

“He’s fine,” she said. “You can come back tomorrow morning.”

( _Come with me?_  he asked in the dark of the alley, her forehead resting against his collarbone and her breath ghosting across his skin, the thought of just walking away from her closing his throat and clawing at his heart. _Just for tonight_ , he’d promised, and already some part of him had guessed that he would want more than that, but he’d been willing to pretend a little longer.)

“Riiiight,” Dameron scratched at his jawline awkwardly, eyeing her. He looked up at Cassian over her head, and suddenly his mouth twitched. “Jyn?” He asked, pointing a questioning finger at her.

Cassian nodded.

“Huh,” the other man’s mouth twitched again as he glanced back down, and Cassian was torn between embarrassment, exasperation, lingering desire, and just a little bit of something that might have been smugness. “Well,” Dameron said brightly, “I guess I can go off shift now. If you’re, uh, willing to take care of things here,” he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Cassian decided that exasperation was definitely the dominate emotion.

“Yes,” Jyn said simply (nevermind, it was desire).

“Good, glad to hear it,” Dameron grinned, winking at Cassian. “Shara will be pumped, too. But don’t think this gets you out of breakfast,” he shook a finger at them. “I expect to see you both, bright and early. And preferably dressed.”

“No promises,” Jyn said dryly.

Dameron looked at Cassian over her head again and his grin stretched wider. “I like her,” he announced. “You should keep her.”

 “Get out, Kes,” he ordered.

“Going, going. Sleep well, kids. You know, if you do at all.”

“ _Out._ ”

The door slid shut, and Jyn took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said without turning. “If that made you…uncomfortable. Or angry, or something.” She shrugged one shoulder, shifting her weight, the calm and unruffled woman a moment ago replaced with someone significantly less certain. “I just thought that would be the best way to get him off your case. And relationships are supposed to be resilient factors,” she rushed on. “It will help when they evaluate you. But if you didn’t - ”

“ _Creo que podr_ _ía amarte_ ,” Cassian said mildly (the truth, he had told her only the truth since the moment they had met and he didn’t see any reason to stop now. Maybe he never would).

Jyn turned slowly to face him, and when she saw the smile on his face, her own carefully blank mask relaxed and fell away. “What does that mean?” She asked, reaching up and brushing her fingertips against the hollow of his throat, igniting a fire in his skin as she traced a meandering pattern underneath the collar of his shirt.

Cassian took her hand and tugged gently, pulling her back towards him. “Stay long enough,” he murmured, his breath as warm as hers now against her lips, “and you might find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit, Jyn and Draven's tense but ultimately unexplained tense relationship is a seed I planted for myself, in the event that I decide to continue this later or in a sequel. So i won't answer any questions as to what *that* was all about, but no, it's not just that Draven is a dick.
> 
> "Suicide Watch" is a duty assigned to officers in the military (and senior enlisted, depending on the person) when someone is labelled At Risk, and depending on the situation, can be anything from someone who literally follows the subject everywhere, even to the toilets, or someone who simply checks in on you periodically and is always on call. It's a difficult and necessary part of any major organization that deals with traumatic events on a regular basis. 
> 
> The idea that Saw brought Jyn to Yavin as a child, or at least to meetings with Alliance leadership, is based entirely on these ["deleted scenes" comics](http://www.gamesradar.com/leia-meets-jyn-saws-final-words-and-more-these-star-wars-rogue-one-comic-deleted-scenes-are-incredible/).
> 
> Again, my spanish is pretty rusty and if I messed it up anywhere (my problem isn't necessarily vocabulary, it's appropriate usage), please let me know!
> 
> Finally, thank you to everyone who read and left kudos/remarks on this Extremely Long and Complicated I Swear It's Gonna Be A One Shot! I really appreciate all the support and thoughtful comments. I hope the ending lived up to the rest of it ( _damn_ , Cassian's POV is hard!), and eventually I might get around to writing how the movie events might have gone with the alternate beginning. But for now, I like where this left us. Thanks again!


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